If you’re looking for a discount on a new construction, now’s the time.

That was the overarching takeaway from Friday’s sole US macro release, which showed new home sales jumped sharply in April.

As ever, you don’t want to read too much into this series. It’s very erratic. But the 743,000 annual rate marked an 11% increase from the prior month’s pace, the largest jump in nearly two years.

The annualized rate has now pushed through the top-end of a range that’s held since the spring buying season in 2023.

Gains were particularly pronounced in the South, where sales rose 12%. The Midwest showed a much larger gain, but the South’s what matters in terms of size.

The numbers were a rare bright spot for a US housing market that’s (still) beset by an acute affordability crisis. Existing home sales figures released by the NAR on Thursday were disappointing.

The median new home price in April was $407,200, less than the median resale value and down nearly 2% YoY. April marked the fourth straight month during which the median fell versus the same period a year ago, the fifth in six and the 20th in 25. (As ever, the average price is being pulled meaningfully higher by the upper-end of the market.)

As the figure shows, prices have stalled out. Builders are sitting on a glut of new homes, they need to move ’em and in order to do so, they’re offering incentives, including price cuts.

Of course, price cuts (and other incentives) are tantamount to lost margin for builders, hence depressed builder sentiment. The tariffs and associated uncertainty don’t help.

Meanwhile, a Redfin update showed 56,000 purchase agreements fell through last month, which Lily Katz noted was “equal to 14.3% of homes that went under contract.”

That figure, Katz went on to say, was “the highest April share in records dating back to 2017” excluding 2020 when the economy was shuttered for the pandemic.