US new home sales for June

rationale:

The forecast for June 2026 US new home sales is based on the initial Census/HUD New Residential Sales estimate (seasonally adjusted annual rate in thousands) due July 24, 2026. Note that the BLS sources listed in the resolution text appear to be a template error; the actual data source for this metric is Census New Residential Sales census.gov.

Recent Data and Trend Recent monthly SAAR prints reveal a sharp 3-month downtrend: January 576k, February 630k, March 664k, April 626k, and May 580k fred.stlouisfed.org. The May print of 580k missed consensus calculatedrisk.substack.com and marked a 7.3% decline from April and a 6.8% drop year-over-year 2 sources. However, the Census warns that preliminary monthly changes are highly noisy, with a wide 90% confidence interval of ±13.3% on the monthly change census.gov, and preliminary sales are historically revised by about 5.0% on average census.gov. The year-to-date average stands near 615k.

Headwinds Fundamentals point to continued sluggishness. Inventory is a major structural headwind: May saw 496k new houses for sale, equating to 10.3 months' supply census.gov—the longest months' supply since 2009 reuters.com. In addition, builder sentiment has sharply deteriorated; the NAHB Housing Market Index fell to 35 in June, with current sales falling to 38, buyer traffic at 25, and 35% of builders reporting price cuts nahb.org. Mortgage rates have also remained stubbornly high but stable through June, hovering around 6.5% (6.48% on Jun 4, 6.52% on Jun 11, 6.47% on Jun 18, and 6.49% on Jun 25) fred.stlouisfed.org.

Counter-Signals and Mean Reversion Despite weak builder confidence, demand has not entirely collapsed. MBA purchase application data for June showed resilience; the seasonally adjusted purchase index rose 7% for the week ending June 5, and unadjusted purchase applications remained roughly 3–4% above year-ago levels later in the month mba.org. Broader housing data is mixed: Realtor.com reported May pending listings up 4.3% YoY realtor.com, while Redfin reported pending home sales falling for a fourth straight week in early June amid high prices and mid-6% rates redfin.com. Given the extreme volatility and mean-reverting nature of this series, an outright continuation of the steep May drop is unlikely.

Conclusion Taking a balanced approach, I project a modest rebound from May’s anomalous 580k reading, centering the June SAAR estimate around 605k–610k with a wide standard deviation to account for inherent sampling noise. This assessment is more conservative than early market pricing (which implied a median closer to 620k) due to the concrete structural headwinds in inventory and builder sentiment. The assigned probabilities reflect this central tendency, making outcomes above 580k (71%) and 600k (58%) probable, but viewing thresholds above 620k (45%) and 640k (31%) as less likely without a stronger reversal in current demand indicators.