It’s cheaper to buy a new home than a used one, thanks to incentives and boomers who won’t sell low

In the first quarter of 2026, the median price of a new single-family home was $403,200—$1,400 below the median existing home price of $404,600, according to data sent to Fortune by the National Association of Home Builders, drawing on Census Bureau and NAR figures.

It marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which existing home prices have exceeded new home prices, a streak that began in the second quarter of 2024. Typically, new homes carry a premium over existing ones. That premium, which has averaged 16% going back to 1987, fell to -2% as of April 2026—the first time it has gone negative in data stretching back five decades, according to John Burns Research & Consulting.

But Alex Thomas, research manager on the macro team at John Burns, said it points to old fashioned supply and demand.

“There’s a lot that goes into that data point that is, like, some of it is an artifact of methodology, but there’s some truth to it as well,” he told Fortune.

A changing home build

Builders have been shrinking what they build. The median size of a new home sold has contracted to around 2,400 square feet, down from roughly 2,500 in 2022 and 2,700 in the mid-2010s. Smaller homes mean lower prices—and that alone accounts for part of the apparent discount relative to the existing home market, which skews larger. NAHB also attributed the pricing shift to builders constructing on smaller lots, shifting production toward the South, and offering incentives to move inventory—all against a backdrop of rising construction costs driven in part by tariffs on building materials that NAHB estimates have added as much as $9,200 to the average new home price.

All included in that price change is where the house is located.

“Home prices are holding much firmer in Northeast and Midwest markets that have not seen as much of an increase in supply,” Thomas said. “There just aren’t that many new homes being built in those regions, and softer pricing conditions across the Sunbelt are dragging down national median new home prices.”

The NAHB data confirms the regional divergence: New homes still carry a $309,200 premium over existing homes in the Northeast and a $66,800 premium in the Midwest. The discount flips in the West, where existing homes run $55,500 above new, and the South, where the gap is just $700.

Still, Thomas says the deals are real, and may even be larger.

“The true discount could be more substantial in certain markets, given that many builders are offering incentives beyond just price cuts, such as design credits, rate buydowns, or covered closing costs, that are not captured in Census data on median new home prices,” he said. John Burns’ survey work puts those incentives at roughly 7 to 8% of new home sale prices, a level Thomas called “pretty abnormal” relative to historical norms.

The affordability crisis has pushed builders further: Nearly 20% of new homes faced outright price cuts in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Realtor.com. Buyers in markets with dense new construction have taken note, walking into builder offices and negotiating across competing communities.

Sellers holding onto the old for the highest dollar

The reason builders are willing to deal comes down to an asymmetry with resale sellers.

“Existing home prices are sticky on the way down,” Thomas said. “Resellers want the same prices their neighbors got a year or two ago, and are slower to adjust prices when market conditions change. Existing owners can delist and wait out the market, whereas builders have to move inventory given holding costs.”

However, he said, “I wouldn’t blame boomers specifically.”

Data, on the other hand, shows a distinct generational divide. Baby boomers now account for 42% of all buyers and a dominant 55% of all sellers, according to NAR’s 2026 generational trends report—and those who do sell are moving with equity-fueled flexibility that younger buyers simply don’t have. Meanwhile, boomers who hold low-rate mortgages or own their homes outright have little financial pressure to list.

A Redfin analysis of 2024 Census data found that empty-nest baby boomers own 28% of U.S. homes with three or more bedrooms, compared with just 16% for millennial households with children. Many can’t afford to move even if they wanted to. Meredith Whitney, the Wall Street analyst who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, has noted just one in 10 seniors can afford assisted-living facilities, leaving millions effectively trapped in homes they can no longer leave.

There’s also a rate-lock phenomenon that has effectively frozen the resale market. The average first-time homebuyer age hit a record 40 in 2025, and the share of first-time buyers fell to an all-time low of 21%, according to NAR—the lowest since the association began tracking the figure in 1981. Thomas tracks the gap between the average outstanding mortgage rate—currently around 4.3%—and prevailing market rates, now closer to 6.5%. Until those two lines converge, transaction volumes will remain depressed and the pressure on builders to discount will persist, he said.

“The takeaway is that the premium is negative for the first time ever,” Thomas said. “And I think what it’s saying is correct—there are deals right now.”