New Home Pending Sales Are Down 25.9 Percent Year-Over-Year With 53.7 Percent of Communities Offering an Average Incentive of $10,169
Many buyers are riding out the roller coaster in search of an even cooler housing market
On Oct. 24, the experts at Zonda, the housing industry’s foremost advisors, released the New Home Market Update report for September 2022. The housing market has entered a wait-and-see phase—consumers are trying to decide if it makes sense to buy today or wait. As a result, many potential shoppers have moved to the sidelines. This is captured in total sales activity. Zonda’s New Home Pending Sales Index posted a 25.9 percent decline year-over-year in September, with levels roughly 3 percent below the same month in 2019.
Many builders are also responding to the uncertainty by pausing on new land deals and slowing overall starts. Zonda’s statistics show that 81 percent of builders intend to slow starts for the rest of this year, if they haven’t already. Nearly 89 percent of builders are planning to slow starts next year as well.