New Home SalesCENSUS
560K
U.S. Housing Market · 1963
U.S. Housing Market in 1963
origin yearCensus series beginsnew homes only
New MedianCENSUS
$18,000
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The Almanac's record begins in 1963 — the year a President was assassinated, the median new home cost $18,000, and the U.S. Census Bureau began publishing the annual new-home-sales series we still rely on today.
Builders sold roughly 560,000 new single-family homes that year, a figure that would not be exceeded until the boom of the late 1970s. Existing-home sales were not yet centrally tracked — the National Association of Realtors would not formalize its closed-transactions report until 1968. Mortgage rates, similarly, are not part of the Freddie Mac PMMS series until 1971; the mid-1960s prevailing rate was roughly 5.5–6.0%.
Macroeconomic Context
1963 was a year of stable expansion and a national tragedy. Real GDP grew 4.4%, consumer-price inflation averaged just 1.3%, and unemployment held near 5.7%. The federal funds rate sat around 3.0% under Federal Reserve Chairman William McChesney Martin, whose long tenure (1951–1970) was defined by what Martin called "taking away the punch bowl" — tightening monetary policy when an expansion threatened to overheat. The fiscal backdrop was the Kennedy tax-cut proposal, which would not pass until February 1964 under President Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. The civil-rights movement reached one of its defining moments with the March on Washington in August. The first commercial color television transmissions, the launch of the federal 5-cent stamp, and General Motors' market dominance all captured a moment of post-war American confidence that would define how a generation thought about housing, family formation, and the suburban project.
The Mortgage & Credit Market
Mortgage rates are not part of the modern Freddie Mac PMMS series until 1971, but historical FHA and VA records put the prevailing 30-year fixed rate around 5.5–6.0% in 1963. Mortgage finance was overwhelmingly the province of mutual savings banks and savings-and-loan associations, which funded long-duration fixed-rate mortgages with short-duration deposits under Regulation Q deposit-rate caps — an arrangement that worked smoothly when short-term rates stayed below the Reg Q ceiling but would prove catastrophic when rates rose in the late 1970s. Fannie Mae had been operating as a federal agency since 1938; Freddie Mac would not be founded until 1970. The conventional mortgage was effectively a 25-year amortization with 20–25% down; the FHA-insured 30-year mortgage with 3% down was already a key entry product for first-time buyers.
Cycle Position
1963 is the Almanac's first year because it is the first year of the U.S. Census Bureau's new-home sales series — the foundational federal record we still use today. Builders sold 560,000 new single-family homes that year. Existing-home sales were not yet centrally tracked: the National Association of Realtors would not formalize its closed-transactions report until 1968. The median new home cost $18,000, which translated to a price-to-median-income ratio of roughly 2.7× — comfortable by every modern standard. The cycle that began in 1963 would carry new-home sales steadily higher through 1972 (peaking at 718K) before the OPEC oil embargo and the inflationary 1970s ended the post-war suburban expansion.
The Year in Long View
New-home sales of 560K were 44% of the 2005 record (1,283K) and 183% of the absolute series low (306K in 2011). The median new-home price of $18,000 translates to roughly $184,824 in 2024 dollars — a stark reminder of how much real-terms housing costs have escalated in six decades, even before factoring in lot sizes, square footage, or amenity creep. Mortgage rates pre-1971 are not part of the modern Freddie Mac PMMS series. Historical FHA and VA records put the prevailing 30-year fixed rate around 5.5–6.0% in the early 1960s, climbing toward 7–8% by 1971 — modest by every standard set after the 1973 oil shock and still well below the 2024 reading of 6.84%.
Sources & Methodology
The 1963 figures on this page come from three federal data sources: the U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Construction (annual new single-family home sales), the National Association of Realtors Existing Home Sales report (annual existing-home transactions and median sale prices), and the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (annual average 30-year fixed mortgage rate). Recession bands are drawn from the National Bureau of Economic Research Business Cycle Dating Committee. Inflation adjustments use the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI-U series, and price-to-income ratios reference the Census Bureau's annual median U.S. household income table. Existing-home sales for years before 1968 are not part of the modern NAR series; the Almanac displays Census Bureau new-home data only for those years. Mortgage rates for years before 1971 are not part of the Freddie Mac PMMS series; approximate values for the 1960s are sourced from FHA and VA loan documentation and are noted only where contextually useful.