Housing sales are something of a slow-motion economic indicator, where March 2020's recently released data is only beginning to show the effects on new home sales, which for the month, were primarily affected in the U.S. Census Bureau's West region.
That makes sense when you consider that the states of Washington and California were among the first to report confirmed coronavirus cases within the U.S. At the national level however, the impact within these states is comparatively small with respect to how we anticipate it will be affected in upcoming data releases, which will show