Déjà vu: Home and condo sales way up

Boston Condos for Sale

Last month, new single-family homes were snapped up in numbers not seen since before the Great Recession, following the pace of existing-home sales, which also hit a 14-year high in August.

Census Bureau’s Housing Monthly Report,

There were 1.01 million newly-built homes sold in August, according to the Census Bureau’s monthly report, which tracks signed contracts and paid deposits. That’s the highest number of sales reported since December 2006, when sales reached an adjusted rate of 1.1 million new homes sold.

The majority of homes were sold in the southern region of the country with 636,000 new homes finding buyers, a 13 percent increase compared to July, seasonally adjusted. The northeast region saw a 5 percent increase in sales compared to the previous month. The story was a bit different elsewhere: The midwest region saw sales fall by 21 percent, while western sales numbers were flat.

The report estimated there were 282,000 new homes on the market by the end of August, which would take 3.3 months to sell based on August’s sales rate.

Downtown Boston and the Bottom Line

The surge in sales comes as housing supply hits a 40-year low, driving up prices. Higher price tags don’t appear to be scaring off buyers: The number of mortgage applications for increasingly larger loans to purchase homes have been steadily rising for more than four months.