Americans bought cookie-cutter, fiber cement boxes at a faster-than-expected rate in December, another exciting update out of the world’s largest economy showed.

New home sales rose 8% last month, to a 664,000 annual rate. That was brisker than the 649,000 pace 58 economists collectively expected. And yes, that’s real: 58 people across the country are being paid handsomely to be wrong every day about macro data releases like new home sales.

The month-to-month gain was the best in a year and snapped a two-month streak of declines.

Mortgage rates dropped sharply in November, and builders have offered incentives to lure overburdened buyers for whom new construction is the only option in a market bedeviled by a persistent shortage of resale inventory.

And yet, even amid strong demand, NAHB sentiment deteriorated from August through November as higher rates weighed on market psychology.

Earlier this week, shares of D.R. Horton plunged the most since June of 2020 after the builder disappointed investors despite reporting a 35% YoY increase in purchase contracts. More than three-quarters of the company’s customers availed themselves of rate buy-downs last quarter, the builder told analysts, adding that buy-downs, price cuts and other incentives are likely to continue going forward.

Median new home prices fell nearly 14% in December, Thursday’s government report showed.

The data is obviously volatile, but December marked the fourth straight decline in the YoY pace and the eighth in nine. Prices are a mile below record highs hit in October of 2022.

Of course, prices are still far above pre-pandemic levels, and that’s a contributor to record-high homelessness. (If you haven’t read “Ghost Town” yet, I invite you to indulge. As with all the Monthly Letters, it’s well worth your time.)

Months’ supply of new homes fell in December to 8.2 from 8.8 in November. For context, the low was 3.3 in late-summer 2020. Aggregate supply rose to 453,000 last month, the most in more than a year.