Annual new single-family home sales from the U.S. Census Bureau, 1963 to present. The series peaked at 1.28 million units in 2005 and bottomed at 306,000 in 2011 — a four-fold drawdown that took builders most of a decade to walk back.
The Census Bureau's Survey of Construction tracks new single-family home sales using a probability sample of building permits in 900 permit-issuing places. Figures here are annual averages of monthly seasonally-adjusted annual rates, expressed in thousands of units.
New construction is the more cyclical half of the U.S. housing market. From the 2005 peak of 1.28M, sales fell 76% to 306K by 2011 — the deepest builder downturn since the Great Depression. The current cycle has yet to reclaim 2005 levels.
units, K or Mmedian, current $30-yr fixed, % APRCensusNARFreddie MacNBER monthly