Sales of newly built, single-family homes in September 2017 rose 18.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 667,000 units from an upwardly revised August reading, according to newly released data by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. This is the highest sales rate since October 2007. Year to date, new home sales are 8.6% above their level over the same period last year.

“The September sales numbers show that there is solid, growing demand for new home construction,” said Granger MacDonald, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder and developer from Kerrville, Texas. “However, builders need to continue to monitor rising construction costs to keep houses affordably priced.”

“New home sales have bounced back from a few soft months and have returned to the strong growth trend we saw earlier this year,” said Robert Dietz, NAHB’s chief economist. “As existing home inventory remains tight, we can expect new homes sales to continue to make gains in the months ahead.”

The inventory of new homes for sale was 279,000 in September 2017, which is a five-month supply at the current sales pace. New home sales increased in all four regions: up 33.3% in the Northeast, 25.8% in the South, 10.6% in the Midwest and 2.9% in the West.

For more information, visit www.nahb.org, www.hud.gov or www.census.gov.