What are the Most Active New Sales Markets? Number 1? Nashville!

New home sales have totaled 441,000 over the last 12 months ending in January, up 3 percent from a year ago1. While still below the 660,000 annual average of the last 50 years, the national and regional data available from the Census Bureau mask local pockets of strength. In this post, we use public record deeds as the source of new home sales to examine patterns in the 50 metropolitan areas with the highest number of new sales. We evaluate markets by ranking them on two metrics: new home sales growth and new home sales share. The analysis reveals that the healthiest new home sales markets are primarily in the South, especially in Texas and the Carolina’s.

Eight of the 10 fastest growing new home sales markets are in the South and the fastest growing new home sales market in the U.S. is Nashville, Tenn., where new sales grew by 17 percent over the prior year (Figure 1). Nashville is not only exhibiting strength over the last year, but it is one of only five markets that have higher new home sales in 2015 than in the very early 2000’s when markets were more normal. The second fastest growing market is San Jose, Calif., where new sales grew 14 percent from a year earlier. It is also one of the five markets that is currently larger from a new sales volume perspective in comparison to the early 2000’s. Atlanta, Ga. is the third fastest growing market, where new sales are up 10 percent from a year ago. Atlanta’s new home market strength is particularly remarkable given that distressed sales still account for 16 percent of all sales–by far the highest of the three markets. As distressed sales continue to fall in Atlanta, that will give additional marginal lift to new sales.

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