Sales of newly-built homes dropped in June to the lowest level since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Part of that is due to the moratorium on new home building in Lexington County and part on the rising prices of building materials and the shortage of labor to build them.

Lexington County’s 180-day moratorium aims to give planners and other officials time to find solutions to the rapid growth, increased demands on schools and emergency services and rising traffic congestion.

According to data released by the US Census Bureau, sales fell to an annual rate of 676,000 of new single family homes. That’s 6.6% below May’s rate of 724,000 and 19.4% below the June 2020 level of 839,000.

Analysts were expecting new home sales to increase by 3.4% in June.

After a year of frenzied buying and price gains in the double digits, newly built homes are now out of reach for many families who remain in the market.

The median price of a newly-built home in June rose just 6% from June 2020, While that is a large gain historically, it is nothing compared with the 15%-20% annual gains seen in previous months.

Most home buying is on the higher end of the market, and builders cannot afford to put up affordable homes due to skyrocketing construction costs.