About the Data
Three federal series, one continuous record.
The new-construction share of total U.S. home sales is a derived metric, computed by the Almanac as new_sales ÷ (new_sales + existing_sales) for each year, with both series expressed in equivalent units (millions of transactions). This ratio answers a deceptively important question: of every home that changes hands in a given year, how many are newly built versus previously occupied? The answer determines where production capacity, mortgage origination, and supply-chain investment concentrate — and it tells us a great deal about the health of each half of the market.
New construction's share has ranged from 7% (2011) to 21% (1973) since the combined series begins in 1968. The long-run average through 2024 is approximately 12–13%. But this average obscures a meaningful structural shift: in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the U.S. housing stock was younger and demand for new-built features (air conditioning, modern kitchens, garage space) was strong, the share ran consistently at 17–21%. As the existing housing stock aged and expanded, and as resale inventory grew, new construction's share drifted lower through the 1980s and 1990s. The 2005 subprime peak briefly restored new construction to 15% share by inflating demand across both channels simultaneously. The post-2008 collapse brought new construction's share to a historic low of 7% in 2011 — not because builders captured less of a fixed pie, but because builders cut production far more aggressively than the existing market contracted.
The metric is also sensitive to measurement differences between the two series. Census counts new-home sales at contract signing; NAR counts existing-home sales at closing, typically 30–60 days later. In a rising-rate environment this lag can cause the two series to diverge in direction simultaneously, which distorts the share calculation in any given month. The Almanac uses annual averages, which smooth most of this timing mismatch.
Market share also responds to geographic concentration. New construction is disproportionately concentrated in land-abundant Sunbelt metros — Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Atlanta — where undeveloped land is available and regulatory barriers to new construction are lower. Existing-home sales are more evenly distributed nationally. Periods of high Sunbelt migration (2020–2023) therefore tend to raise new construction's share, while periods of coastal-market dominance (2012–2019) tend to depress it.
Notable Cycles
Four genuine peaks, four wholly different recoveries.
The history of new-construction market share is a story of two competing forces: secular decline as the housing stock matures, punctuated by cyclical spikes driven by credit conditions and demographic demand.
The peak era of new construction (1973–1978): New homes reached their highest-ever share of the market in this period, running at 17–21% of all sales. The driver was the baby boom hitting prime first-time-buyer age (25–34) simultaneously with a relatively young national housing stock that still had significant gaps in suburban coverage. Builders in the Sun Belt, Pacific Coast, and Mid-Atlantic suburbs were filling genuine geographic demand. The 1973 new-construction share of 21.4% — calculated as 634K new sales divided by 634K + 2,330K existing — reflected a market where builders were building into genuine structural shortage.
The secular retreat (1983–2010): As the existing-housing stock expanded from roughly 75 million units in 1975 to 130 million by 2010, new construction's proportional contribution to the total supply available fell. Existing homeowners became an increasingly large share of the seller pool. New construction's share hovered between 14% and 18% through the 1980s and early 1990s, then fell into a 14–16% range through the late 1990s and early 2000s. The exception was the subprime peak of 2005, when new-construction sales reached 1.28M against 7.08M existing — a 15.3% share — reflecting simultaneous excess across both channels rather than structural new-home demand.
The rate lock-in reversal (2022–2024): The most interesting recent dynamic in the share data is the divergence between new construction's resilience and existing-home sales' collapse. In 2022–2024, existing sales fell 19% while new-home sales declined only 3%. As a result, new construction's share rose from 10.9% in 2021 to 14.3% in 2024 — the highest reading since 2007. The mechanism was straightforward: builders could offer mortgage rate buydowns (permanently reducing the buyer's rate to 5–6% at builder expense) that existing homeowners could not match. The combination of rate lock-in eliminating resale supply and builder rate buydowns sustaining new-home demand produced an unusual market structure where new construction took share not by building more homes, but by the existing market collapsing around it.
Definitions
- Sales
units, K or M
- Price
median, current $
- Rate
30-yr fixed, % APR
- SAAR
Census
- EHS
NAR
- PMMS
Freddie Mac
- Recession
NBER monthly