From RealTrends.com: Contract signings for newly built homes bounced back in April after suffering two consecutive months of decline. A total of 443,000 new homes went under contract in the past month, an increase of 6 percent.New home sales (which are only contract signing and not closings) represent a small share of the total housing market. Currently, the existing home sales market covers over 90 percent of all sales. It was reported that existing home sales (closings) also rose in April.
The inventory of newly built homes has been slowly rising. Still, the inventory conditions are at historic lows. Whatever the homebuilders build, it is being sold quite quickly. It took on average 3.4 months to sell a newly built home. A few years ago, it took over 10 months. This sounds like a clear signal for homebuilders to produce more homes.
Read more: The Latest on New Home Sales.