Zonda’s July 2025 New Home Market Update shows a housing market treading water, with new home sales flat month-over-month but inventory trends shifting notably. The seasonally adjusted annualized pace of new home sales came in at 668,318, a 6% drop from a year ago but unchanged from June. The national Zonda Market Ranking index held steady at 106.9, underscoring an “average” performance so far this year.
The standout development was the surge in quick move-in (QMI) homes—speculative inventory that buyers can purchase and occupy right away. Supply climbed to 2.5 QMI homes per community, a level last seen in 2022 during another period of economic uncertainty. Nationally, QMI inventory totaled 39,225 in July, up 18.5% year-over-year though slightly lower than in June.
Builders are increasingly leaning on incentives and price adjustments to move this growing supply. Zonda found that 77% of communities offered incentives on QMI homes in July, compared to 58% offering deals on to-be-built homes.
“The key characteristic of today’s market is that blanket statements simply don’t work,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist for Zonda and NewHomeSource. “Saying ‘Texas is bad,’ for example, bundles a slow market like Austin with a more stable one like Dallas. Understanding the nuances of local markets is tricky today but helps to identify opportunities even in challenging conditions.”
Price movements reflected that uneven landscape. Entry-level homes slipped 1.1% to $325,690, while move-up homes rose 0.4% to $518,194 and high-end homes jumped 2.6% to $923,048—the first increases for those tiers since January. Zonda noted that much of the upward pressure stems from newly opened communities launching at higher price points due to land and construction costs.
The number of actively selling communities also expanded, rising 9.8% year-over-year to 16,596. Orlando, Charlotte, and Raleigh saw the strongest community growth, while Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and New York posted the largest declines. On the QMI side, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore recorded the sharpest year-over-year increases in speculative inventory, with gains of 147%, 100%, and 81% respectively.
Taken together, July’s report depicts a housing market caught in transition. Sales remain stable, but inventory is building and builders are responding with incentives to keep absorption steady, even as pricing diverges across buyer segments.
