New home sales fell 10.5 percent in July, and the only decline that clears the government's own significance test is in the Midwest

Six hundred and seven thousand.

That is the seasonally adjusted annual rate at which new single-family houses sold in July, according to the estimate the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development published jointly at ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. It is 10.5 percent below June. The Census Bureau will not call it a decline.

The reason is printed in the release. The margin on that change is plus or minus 14.0 percentage points, which puts the true figure somewhere between a fall of 24.5 percent and a rise of 3.5 percent, and the Bureau's own Explanatory Notes say that where the range contains zero it is uncertain whether there was any increase or decrease at all. The same applies looking back a year. Sales were 6.3 percent below July 2025, with a margin of 19.6 points.

One region breaks the pattern

Table 1a splits the national figure four ways, and three of the four splits are as inconclusive as the national one. The Northeast rose 30.3 percent with a margin of 83.9 points. The West rose 6.2 percent with a margin of 34.2. The South, which is well over half the market, fell 13.0 percent with a margin of 17.8.

The Midwest is different. Sales there ran at 75,000 in June and 43,000 in July, a fall of 42.7 percent, and the margin on it is 13.4 points. That interval does not reach zero. On the government's own test it is the single statistically firm decline in the release, and it is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean: the Bureau publishes no reason for it, and a regional series drawn from this sample moves sharply in both directions.

The other real number is inventory

There were 488,000 new houses for sale at the end of July. That is 1.9 percent above June, with a margin of 1.2 points, which makes it the only other change in the release that clears the significance test.

At the current selling pace the standing stock represents 9.6 months of supply, against 8.5 months in June and 9.2 months in July 2025. Inside that total, the houses builders have not yet started went from 106,000 to 115,000, while the number of houses that were already complete when they sold fell from 391,000 to 343,000.

June was not what we reported

This publication covered the June release on 24 July and gave the June rate as 628,000, which is what the Census Bureau published that day. Tuesday's release puts June at 678,000. The difference is 50,000 houses, or 8.0 percent, and the entire 10.5 percent July fall is measured against the higher figure. May moved too, from 618,000 as first revised to 630,000 now.

None of that is a correction. The Bureau marks April, May and June with an (r) and July with a (p), and its notes say the preliminary seasonally adjusted total is revised by about 5.0 percent on average, because a sale is recorded when a deposit is taken or an agreement is signed and that can happen before a permit exists. A reader following this series month to month is watching a number that is still moving after it is printed.

Prices went two ways at once

The median price of a new house sold in July was $393,800, down 2.3 percent from June and 0.9 percent below a year earlier. The average was $508,800, up 4.1 percent on the month and 5.4 percent on the year. Neither move clears its own margin.

The Bureau addresses the split in its Explanatory Notes rather than leaving it to the reader. Price changes in this series reflect the mix of houses sold by region and size as much as they reflect what an identical house costs. The August figures are due on 24 September.