Continued Growth of New Home Sales in 2015
New home sales in the South region of the United States increased by 4.5% in the month of November – an optimistic statistic for one of the slower real estate months of the year. This statistic shows the continued growth of new home sales in 2015. Overall, new home sales were higher by 14.5% compared to the 11 months of 2014 at this time. New home inventories are at an all-time high since January, 2010 at 232,000.
A one-time anomaly that is affecting existing home sales and new home sales is the mandatory system change of 
home closing implemented by the United States government at the 1st of October. As of October 1st, all home loan applications taken after this date had to adhere to a new system and procedure that slowed down the mortgage approval-to-close process. This new process informs home buyers every single step of the financing process to ensure that they are fully aware of the financial responsibility that they are undertaking in their home purchase. Because of this, the closings of existing homes was delayed by several weeks as lenders learned and implemented the new system. Title companies also had to adjust to the process as they were required to respond to documentation that normally had been handled differently in past closings.
The effect on sales at the end of 2015 was apparent as existing home closing number stagnated. The overflow effect was that home buyers, which typically start looking at existing homes first, were delayed in making purchasing decisions. Therefore, new home sales were affected by those same home buyers turning to a new home purchase vs. an existing home purchase. However, even with these delays and anomalies, the new home, real estate market is thriving in 2015 – all numbers year-over-year comparatively are on the rise and show no sign of slowing down.
