New home sales stay active, signaling steady demand for Home Depot stores

A 682,000 annualized pace of new-home sales is not a boom, but it is enough to keep Home Depot’s core categories in motion. March sales were up 7.4% from February and 3.3% from a year earlier, while 481,000 new houses were on the market at month-end, equal to 8.5 months of supply. That is the kind of housing pipeline that can still generate real floor traffic, even if the market is nowhere near a runaway pace.

For store teams, the signal is less about broad housing cheer than about the mix of work that follows a new-build closing. New-home buyers tend to arrive with a checklist: appliances, flooring, paint, trim, fixtures, and delivery timing tied to occupancy dates. When inventory sits at 8.5 months, builders have room to offer incentives and bundle product decisions, which can push more conversations onto the sales floor around finish selections, installation quotes, and special orders. The median new-home price fell to $387,400 in March, down 5.3% from February and 6.2% from March 2025, while the average sales price was $503,100. That spread suggests the market is still finding buyers who can move, but price sensitivity is very much part of the story.

Builders are still signaling that affordability is the main brake. The National Association of Home Builders said confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes rose to 38 in March, but builders continued to cite elevated construction costs and shortages of buildable lots and labor. In a separate April survey, NAHB said 64% of builders were offering sales incentives and 37% were cutting prices. It also said January inventory of new single-family homes stood at 476,000 units, or 9.7 months of supply. That points to a market where builders are working harder to convert buyers, which usually means more package decisions and more pressure on product availability.

The broader housing market is still sluggish enough to keep the lift uneven. The National Association of REALTORS® said existing-home sales fell 3.6% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million, with inventory at 1.36 million units, or 4.1 months of supply. Lawrence Yun said lower consumer confidence and softer job growth were still weighing on buyers, and NAR trimmed its 2026 forecast for new-home sales to flat from a prior call for a 5% gain. For Home Depot, that makes the March new-home number more important as a steady demand signal than as proof of a housing rebound.

Home Depot said in its fiscal 2025 annual report that sales rose to $164.7 billion and net earnings reached $14.2 billion, with the company leaning on its Pro strategy, on-shelf availability, and associate expertise. It stocks roughly 30,000 to 40,000 items across departments including Appliances, Flooring, Lumber, Millwork, and Kitchen & Blinds, and it markets jobsite delivery, custom orders, large equipment rentals, pro pricing, and millions of SKUs. That is why a market with 682,000 annualized new-home sales still matters on the floor: not as a headline boom, but as a steady stream of orders, installs, and pro conversations that can build aisle by aisle.