New Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on new homes, were down 17% in April to a 591,000 annualized pace, which was in line with expectations. The report is actually weaker than it appears as there was a negative revision to the previous month. When factoring that in, sales are down 22% from the initially reported number. Year over year sales they are down 27%. Why the big decline? Higher rates and home prices are having an impact, but uncertainty is as well. It normally takes 6 months to build a new home, but today it’s much longer and there is little certainty on completion times. People rarely make moving plans years in advance and with rates moving higher and fears of a recession, many are not comfortable purchasing a new home that is not completed and does not have a solid finish date. And to that point, while there were 444,000 homes for sale at the end of April, only 38,000 or 6% are actually completed. The rest are either not started or under construction. The median home price came in at $450,600, which is up 20% year over year and points to an increase in higher priced homes sold. The Average priced home came in at $570,300, which is up 31% from last year.