In a lot of ways, there are two housing markets. There's the market for previously owned homes and the market for new homes. These days, the existing-home market is struggling with low inventory and slow sales, but the new home market is in the midst of a summer boom. In fact, new home sales in July, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, were up 31.5 percent from the same time last year and 4.4 percent higher month-over-month.
The reason? Well, a lot of it has to do with the existing-home market's recent struggles. Home buyers having trouble finding an older home are increasingly looking at new homes as an alternative. That's spurred sales and also boosted new home construction. Now newly built homes are a growing share of the current inventory of available homes and sales are surging while, at the same time, existing home sales have stalled.
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