Higher home prices stemming from rising lumber and other building material costs as well as a lack of inventory due to a shortage of buildable lots offset solid demand for new home sales in December. Despite a brief slowing in sales activity toward the end of the year, new home sales in 2020 posted a strong 18.8 percent gain over 2019.
Sales of newly built, single-family homes in December rose 1.6 percent to an 842,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate, from a downwardly revised November reading, according to newly released data by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.