While the spring housing market got off to a sluggish start because of higher interest rates, one bright spot is newly built home sales. Sales of newly built homes jumped 9% reaching the highest level since last fall, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. New home prices are coming closer inline with the existing real estate market. Personally, that is what I have seen locally around the Greater Richmond Va metro area, and it’s not a surprise to me at all. Existing often very old homes have risen so much why not buy new? But “wait there is more”. IMO- Many new homes are not built nearly as well as older homes, particularly homes from the 50’s,60’s,70’s and into the early 90’s in some cases. A renovated home from that circa is often better than a newly built house IMO.