This article was originally published by a www.houzz.com . Read the Original article here. .
A limited amount of existing inventory along with solid demand helped new home sales end the year on an up note, even as buyers continue to grapple with housing affordability challenges.
Sales of newly built, single-family homes in December increased 3.6% to a 698,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate from an upwardly revised November number, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. The pace of new home sales in December was up 6.7% compared to a year earlier.
New home sales ended 2024 2.5% higher over the 2023 total. NAHB is forecasting a slight gain for sales in 2025 given ongoing solid macroeconomic conditions, particularly for the labor market. Furthermore, builders are cautiously optimistic about the building market given a post-election policy reset that seeks to eliminate unnecessary regulations
A new home sale occurs when a sales contract is signed, or a deposit is accepted. The home can be in any stage of construction: not yet started, under construction or completed. In addition to adjusting for seasonal effects, the December reading of 698,000 units is the number of homes that would sell if this pace continued for the next 12 months.
New single-family home inventory in December continued to rise to a level of 494,000, up 10% compared to a year earlier. This represents an 8.5 months’ supply at the current building pace.
Completed ready-to-occupy inventory is up 46% to a level of 118,000, compared to a year ago.
NAHB estimates the combined new and existing total months’ supply (8.5 months’ supply for new homes while the much larger resale market was at 3.1) fell to just a 4 months’ supply in December, the lowest since April 2024. The market has not been near a 6 months’ supply, which represents a balanced market, since 2012.
The median new home sale price in December was $427,000, up 2.1% from a year ago.
Regionally, on a year-to-year basis for 2024 totals, new home sales were strongest in the Midwest, up 19% in 2024. Sales also rose 1.7% in the Northeast and 2.6% in the West but declined 0.2% in the South.
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This article was originally published by a eyeonhousing.org . Read the Original article here. .
Broadly, regenerative gardening is about leaving the soil and garden environment in a better condition than the one you found it in. It happens when garden owners “contribute to restoring a landscape, big or small, back to health,” landscape designer Melanie Hick says. “We regenerate [landscapes] by helping biodiversity, such as installing sand beds and habitat poles for solitary bees, improving soil and improving planting to support birds.”
“Fertilizers, lime, manures and pesticides can suppress the regenerative powers of [landscapes],” says Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at the Royal Horticultural Society. Instead of using these elements, regenerative gardeners add plants such as cover crops, or “green manure,” which are fast-growing and can be mixed back into the soil; add clover and other legumes to supply nitrogen, a vital plant nutrient; and feed compost made from garden and kitchen waste to the soil organisms and plants.
“Regenerative gardening is about working with natural processes, not against them, taking a holistic approach to garden management to foster a healthy and thriving ecosystem,” landscape designer Harry Holding says. “From soil restoration and habitat provision to water management, it’s about looking at all the systems in the [landscape] and allowing them to link up to create a synergistic whole.”
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