New-home sales may have started 2018 by softening, but that hasn’t made Freddie Mac economists lose their optimism that the sector will be key to driving the housing market in 2018. “While existing home sales may struggle to top their best-in-over-a-decade 2017 performance, new home sales should provide enough growth to push total home sales in the U.S. modestly higher in 2018,” says Len Kiefer, Freddie Mac’s deputy chief economist.
