New home sales in the Midwest rose by nearly 30 percent in April.
The housing recovery continued rolling along this morning, with the Commerce Department reporting that new home sales rose 28 percent in the Midwest in April.
Nationally, sales rose 3.3 percent from March to April, and 9.9 percent from April of last year. In addition, year-over-year median price of new properties rose 4.9 percent.
Garrison Benson, the CEO/president of Garrison Partners, said he has definitely observed a greater level of demand in Chicago for new construction.
“We’ve had the best first quarter in four years,” Benson said. “We’re on pace with every community we have across the country.”
Pent-up demand, Benson explained, has been a big part of the increase. Empty nesters, woeful of the doom and gloom of the last four-five years, are finally emerging, selling their properties and looking for new construction, and first-time buyers are showing increasing interest in homes less than $250,000 and more than $600,000.
“We’re cautiously optimistic going forward,” Benson said.
Other important information in the Commerce Department’s report included:
- Inventory of new homes rose 1.4 percent, but at 5.1 months supply, it remains near record lows.
- In addition to the Midwest, sales rose 7.7 percent in the Northeast and 27.5 percent in the West; only sales in the South fell, by 10.6 percent, though more than half of the nation’s new home sales in April were in the South.
- The past three months, new home sales are 14 percent higher than they were in 2011.