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\u00a0For sale signs are posted in front of condominiums for sale on July 09, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n
Buying a newly built home is now cheaper than purchasing an existing one in many U.S. housing markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n Newly built homes now offer better value than existing homes nationwide and across one-third of major U.S. metro areas. In July, they sold for a median of $205 per square foot, compared with $212 for existing homes, according to a new Zillow analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n From 2018 through 2024, newly built homes sold for more per square foot than existing homes in 77 of 84 months.<\/p>\n “For years, buyers assumed new construction was out of their price range, and for most of the last decade, they were right,” Zillow senior economist Kara Ng said in a statement to FOX Business. “That’s changed. Zillow\u2019s research finds new homes now sell for a median of $205 per square foot nationally, compared to $212 for existing homes.”<\/p>\n TOP REAL ESTATE MOGUL ISSUES STARK WARNING AS CALIFORNIA BUYERS SAY ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’ ON TAXES<\/a><\/p>\n Ng added, “Buyers who haven’t looked at new construction<\/a> recently owe it to themselves to look again.”<\/p>\n Over the past 19 months, builders have increasingly cut prices and offered incentives to move inventory. New homes sold at a discount to existing homes in 17 of those months, Zillow reported.<\/p>\n High mortgage rates<\/a> have also kept many homeowners in place, reducing the supply of existing homes, the report noted.<\/p>\n The biggest discounts are concentrated in the Sun Belt, where a surge in homebuilding has given buyers more options.<\/p>\n Austin, Texas, tops the list, with new homes selling for 19.3% less per square foot than existing homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Raleigh, North Carolina<\/a>, follows with a 14.4% discount, while Tampa, Florida, rounds out the top three at 12.4%.<\/p>\n “Buyers are finding the biggest deals in the places where builders were most active,” Ng said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Builders in those markets have inventory to move, and they know it, so prices are coming down, and they’re sweetening deals with things like mortgage rate buydowns that a typical resale seller just can’t offer.”<\/p>\n Nationally, new homes accounted for 12.6% of all home sales in the 12 months through July 2026, though their share varied widely by market.<\/p>\n New construction represented 37.1% of home sales in San Antonio and 33.6% in Raleigh, compared with just 2% in Hartford, Connecticut.<\/p>\n “What’s happening in high-supply markets is proof of what happens when you build more,” Ng said. “Affordability<\/a> has improved in these places because builders had to compete for buyers. But we’re still about 4.7 million homes short nationally and permitting is slowing down.”<\/p>\n “The gains we’re seeing today could reverse if we don’t keep building. Local policy, including zoning reform and streamlined permitting, is the most direct lever we have.”<\/p>\n LINK: Get updates and more at foxbusiness.com.<\/a><\/p>\n Real Estate<\/a>Money<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article \u00a0For sale signs are posted in front of condominiums for sale on July 09, 2026 in Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,2409,2349,223,111],"class_list":["post-456309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-consumer","tag-money","tag-news","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}