Elevated borrowing costs, rising inflation and broad economic uncertainty continue to curb buyer demand and hold back new home sales. Sales of newly built single-family homes declined 10.5% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000, following a sharply upwardly revised June estimate, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. The pace of new home sales was 6.3% lower than a year earlier per the July data. The July sales pace was the slowest since January of this year. Mortgage rates increased from 6.1% to above 6.6% from January to July. …New single-family home inventory in July rose to 488,000 units, up 1.9% from June, and down 1.6% compared to a year ago. This represents an elevated 9.6 months’ supply at the current building pace, the highest measure since January.