Given consumer confidence challenges and overall economic uncertainty, many prospective buyers are delaying home purchases. This is reflected in Zonda’s October New Home Market Update, with new home sales flat month over month and year over year.
A combination of job market and mortgage rate stability as well as meaningful housing affordability improvement are likely required to give consumers enough confidence to re-engage with the market.
“The holding pattern we are seeing today from prospective buyers is tied to economic anxieties and the job market,” says Zonda and NewHomeSource chief economist Ali Wolf. “While this makes for a tricky backdrop today, demographics and deferrals provide a nice setup to a stronger market once macro factors stabilize and consumer confidence returns.”
Zonda’s data indicates there were 713,769 new homes sold in October on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, largely flat compared to the September and October 2024 sales rates. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 57,513 new homes were sold, 1.8% higher than October 2024 and 10.1% above the same month in 2019.
Zonda’s New Home Pending Sales Index, created to help account for fluctuations in supply by combining total sales volume with the average sales rate per community, declined 3.5% year over year to 141.9 in October. San Francisco, Dallas, and Phoenix posted the best index values relative to last year while New York, Tampa, and Las Vegas performed the worst on a year over year basis.
The Zonda Market Ranking (ZMR), created to add further context to sales, rated the national housing market as average in October, continuing its trend in 2025. The ZMR accounts for seasonally adjusted sales pace and volume and is taken as a percentage relative to a baseline market average. Sixty percent of the markets tracked by Zonda were ranked as average in October and just 30% were categorized as overperforming.
National prices increased on a year-over-year basis for both move-up and high-end homes in October, while prices fell marginally for entry-level homes. According to Zonda, the increase in prices for high-end homes reflects new communities opening at higher price points, improvements in design quality, and larger lots and home sizes.
The majority of builders surveyed by Zonda in October (71%) held prices flat month over month. Incentives still remain an important element for builders to help achieve sales. In October, 60% of new home communities offered incentives on to-be-built homes and 79% offer incentives on quick move-in supply.
