When a Zonda data report uses the words rut, slog, stagnant and sluggish in its first few paragraphs, it’s hard to put a positive spin on it.
Resale activity remains sluggish, it stated. And new home sales are down year-over-year. But it strives to find a silver lining in the residential building data provider’s New Home Market Update, showing the consistency of no change for its average ranking for the sixth consecutive month.
Overall, though, in its June 2025 data report, Zonda stated “the new home market is stuck in a rut.”
The report cautions to take its dour phrasing with a grain of salt. “While an average ranking may not signal a booming market, it does suggest that consumers are still showing some level of positive responsiveness to builder incentives and/or price cuts,” the report stated.
Its data showed overall quick move-in (QMI) housing supply and QMIs per community are up year-over-year. Also, home prices are mainly flat to trending down in many areas. In some regions, like the Midwest and Northeast, prices are faring better than high-production markets where new and resale supply has risen more sharply, like in the Sunbelt.
“The housing market creates jobs during the construction of a new home, at the point of sale, and following move-in,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist for Zonda and NewHomeSource. “The longer this stagnant sales environment persists, the wider the potential economic impact, particularly due to an accompanying lower pace of housing starts.”
The metric shows little change in sales activity in its examination of the number of new home contract sales each month. It accounts for both cancellations and seasonality, and shows 689,834 new homes sold in June on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate. This was up 1.5% from May, but 2.2% lower than a year ago. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 58,848 homes were sold, 1.5% lower than last year and 5.3% above the same month in 2019.
According to the report, the markets that posted the best numbers relative to last year were Minneapolis, Minn., (+17.1%), Jacksonville, Fla., (+15.5%), and Cincinnati, Ohio (+14.0%). Minneapolis was up compared to the last year and grew 12.5% month-over-month.
Inversely, the metros that performed the worst year-over-year were San Francisco (-29.6%), Las Vegas (-21.3%), and Riverside/San Bernardino, Calif. (-16.8%).
Denver, Colo., Las Vegas, Nev., and Riverside/San Bernardino were the best-performing markets month-over-month. Denver increased 21.6% relative to last month.
