--- title: '‘Sticker Shock’: New Homes Under $300K Are Disappearing Quickly' description: The number of new homes selling for under $300,000 is decreasing sharply in 2022. Existing home prices are rising too. authors: - name: Sarah Hansen role: Senior Writer url: https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/ bio: Sarah Hansen is a senior writer at Money covering all things personal finance. Previously, she covered economic policy and capital markets on the breaking news desk at Forbes. education: Northwestern University, New York University at_money_since: 2021 articles: 347 covers: - Housing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-m-hansen/ former_staff: true editors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Housing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2022-04-27T18:03:47.000Z' modified: '2024-02-18T13:26:56.000Z' section: Housing tags: - home prices - News word_count: 462 canonical: https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![A Disappearing House](https://img.money.com/2022/04/News-Homes-Under-300K-Disappearing.jpg) It’s getting more and more difficult to find an affordable new home. Only 14% of new construction home sales last month had price tags under $300,000, according to [data](https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf) released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. For the sake of comparison, in March of 2021, 34% of new home sales went for less than $300,000. The picture was even bleaker at the $200,000 threshold: just 1% of new homes sold in March 2022 went for less than that, compared to 2% the year before. “Buyers are facing sticker shock due to deteriorating affordability conditions and a lack of existing home inventory,” Danushka Nanayakkara-Skillington, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Assistant Vice President of Forecasting and Analysis, said in a [news release](https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/press-releases/2022/04/declining-affordability-conditions-put-a-damper-on-new-home-sales). The median price of a new home sold in March was $436,700, the data shows. That’s a 21.4% jump from the median sale price of $359,600 in March 2021. NAHB Chairman Jerry Konter said higher prices for new homes are the result of [mortgage rates](https://money.com/current-mortgage-rates/), which are now soaring above 5%, as well as the rising construction and development costs that builders are facing. When new homes are less affordable, sales slow down. The number of new home sales last month was 12.6% lower than the previous year, according to the Census Bureau. Of course, it’s not just new construction that’s getting more expensive. In March, the median sale price for an existing home was $373,300, according to [data](https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/existing-home-sales-slip-2-7-in-march) from the National Association of Realtors. That’s a 15% jump from a year earlier. A surge of demand for homes during the pandemic combined with a severe [shortage of inventory](https://money.com/rising-mortgage-rates-housing-shortage/) has driven home prices up some 20% over the past year alone, and prices are expected to climb even further in 2022. Rising [mortgage rates](https://money.com/current-mortgage-rates/) have only intensified the crunch, and homes have become [unaffordable](https://money.com/rising-home-prices-down-payments-housing-affordability/) for a growing portion of Americans. But even though the market is still running significantly hotter than it did before the pandemic, there are some signs that the rapid [price growth is beginning to slow](https://money.com/house-list-prices-dropping/). Data released Monday by real estate brokerage Redfin shows that competitiveness is declining for the first time since September as rising rates and prices push some buyers out of the market. “That should provide some relief for people who can still afford to buy,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a [blog post](https://www.redfin.com/news/real-estate-bidding-wars-march-2022/), “as they’ll likely face fewer competing offers and may no longer need to offer drastically over the asking price in order to win.” ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Housing", "item": "https://money.com/housing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Home Prices", "item": "https://money.com/home-prices/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "‘Sticker Shock’: New Homes Under $300K Are Disappearing Quickly" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/", "name": "‘Sticker Shock’: New Homes Under $300K Are Disappearing Quickly", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2022-04-27T18:03:47.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/new-home-sales-price-300k-disappearing/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-02-18T13:26:56.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "‘Sticker Shock’: New Homes Under $300K Are Disappearing Quickly", "articleSection": "Housing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2022/04/News-Homes-Under-300K-Disappearing.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Homes-Under-300K-Disappearing" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sarah Hansen", "url": "https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/#author", "description": "Sarah Hansen is a senior writer at Money covering all things personal finance. 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