Data through: August 2026 · updated Sep 24 · Updates: Monthly · Next: Oct 27
MThe three bars show the last 3 months for this indicator, oldest left to newest right. Bar height reflects each reading relative to the other two — the tallest is the highest of the three, the shortest the lowest.
↓ 5.6% MoM↑ 0.0% YoY
Historical context: Currently in the 88th percentile historically — elevated vs historical norms.
What this means right now: Months' supply of 7.6 mo or more sits in the top quintile — unsold new homes at glut levels. Against today's bands, readings here came in 1973–75, 1979–82, 1989–91, 2007–11 and 2022–26.
Months' Supply of New Homes · Monthly · 1963–2026
NBER recessions
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Monthly values
Months' Supply of New Homes — the last 12 months
Every month's reading, with the band the heatmap gives it. The chart above shows the same series in full.
Month
Value
Band
Aug 2026
8.5 mo
Severe/critical reading
Jul 2026
9.0 mo
Severe/critical reading
Jun 2026
8.6 mo
Severe/critical reading
May 2026
9.2 mo
Severe/critical reading
Apr 2026
9.0 mo
Severe/critical reading
Mar 2026
8.7 mo
Severe/critical reading
Month-end readings of the same series the chart shows, from new_home_months_supply. Values are the current record, not point-in-time: a month that has since been revised shows its revised value.
What is the Months' Supply (New)?
Months' supply is the ratio of new single-family houses for sale at the end of the month to the month's sales pace. It is the number of months it would take, at the current rate of sales, to sell the homes builders have on the market. It is the new-home market's inventory-to-sales balance, seasonally adjusted, since 1963.
It is a driver in USMacro's Housing Cycle, not a voter. Inventory has no honest 'improving' direction as an activity measure — the site's Economic Breadth ruling. As a balance it does have a side: a low reading means a tight market, with buyers absorbing homes faster than builders list them, and a high reading a loose one, with unsold homes piling up. Four to six months is the range the Census Bureau and the industry have long treated as balanced; the Housing Cycle page shows the reading against that band.
Months' supply moves with sales as much as with inventory: it spikes when sales collapse (2008–09, 2022) even before builders add homes, and falls when demand surges (2020). Its 12-month change correlates most with single-family starts about two months later, inversely — a tight market and rising starts go together.
How We Color-Code the Months' Supply (New)
Our heatmap colors this indicator against historically significant thresholds:
Below 4.7 mo
Bottom quintile of the 1963–2026 history — the tightest new-home markets
4.7 – 5.5 mo
Second quintile — tight
5.5 – 6.3 mo
Middle quintile — around the long-run median
6.3 – 7.6 mo
Fourth quintile — loose
Above 7.6 mo
Top quintile — unsold new homes at glut levels
Historical Extremes — What Happened Next?
When this indicator reaches extreme levels, history shows consistent patterns:
Jan 2009Financial-crisis glut
12.2 mo
The all-time high as sales collapsed under a mountain of unsold new homes. It took until late 2011 to get back below six months, and until early 2012 below five.
Oct 2020Pandemic demand surge
3.3 mo
The all-time low — record-low rates and remote work absorbed new homes faster than builders could list them
Jul 2022Rate-shock spike
10.3 mo
The highest since 2009 as mortgage rates doubled and sales fell while the 2021 pipeline kept delivering
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is months' supply a driver and not a voter in the Housing Cycle?
Because it is inventory divided by sales — a balance, not an activity count. The site's Economic Breadth census ruled that housing inventory has no honest improving direction, and the Housing Cycle's design review agreed (the feedback synthesis's C2). The reading is shown as a level with its balance band; it never casts a vote.
Do the heatmap colors and the Housing Cycle page's driver strip use the same rule?
Yes. The driver strip shows the heatmap's own color for the same reading — one print, one color, by the Housing Cycle charter's Amendment 1 (Sep 4, 2026). The rule is the quintiles of the series' own history, inverted because a lower reading is the tighter market. The four-to-six-month balance band is not a coloring rule; the Housing Cycle page shows it as a reference line only. Today the driver strip reads 8.5 months, at the 88th percentile of the series' history.
What does the 4–6 month band mean?
It is the range home builders and housing analysts have long described as a balanced market: enough unsold homes for buyers to choose from, not so many that builders must discount. Below four is a seller's market; above six, a buyer's.
Why did months' supply spike in 2022 when few homes were being started?
Because sales fell faster than inventory. Mortgage rates nearly doubled in six months (3.2% in January 2022 to 5.8% by late June, 6.7% by the end of September), new-home sales dropped, and the homes started in the 2021 boom were still arriving on the market. The ratio can rise on the sales side alone.
How are this page's color bands set?
By a five-band quintile rule: the 20th, 40th, 60th and 80th percentiles of the series' own history, rounded to a tenth of a month and inverted because a lower reading is the tighter market. Today's color reads against the whole history, 1963 to today: the edges now are 4.7 mo, 5.5 mo, 6.3 mo and 7.6 mo. A past month's color — in the Time Machine, on the Housing Cycle's driver strip and in the monthly table — reads against the history up to that month, as it would have read then. So the edges move a little as data arrives. A color exists once the series has ten years of history (here from 1973). Nothing is tuned to the current reading.