Existing-Home Sales Up 1.9%

Existing-home sales may have been short of expectations, but they were still in the green in November, according to he latest data from the National Association of Relators…(NAR)

  • M-O-M: Existing-home sales were up 1.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million in November.
  • Y-O-Y: Despite monthly growth, sales are still down 2.0% when compared to November 2020.

Prices were up and inventory was down as has been the case for almost all of 2021…

  • The median existing-home price was $353,900 in November. This is ____% increase from October and a 13.9% compared to the same time last year.
  • Total housing inventory was down 9.8% from October to 1.11 million units which is 13.3% lower than one year ago.

NOTE: The median existing single-family home price was $362,600 in November, up 14.9% from November 2020.

The South continues to dominate the other three regions with sales up 2.9% month-over-month and home prices up 18.4% year-over-year to a median price of $318,900.

  • The West had the second best month with sales up 2.3% and home prices up 8.4% to $507,200 followed by the Midwest with sales up 0.7% (home prices up 9.0% to $260,100) and the Northeast with flat sales and home prices up 4.7% to $372,500.

NOTE: Clearly, affordability is becoming a problem for first-time homebuyers as their share of the market fell to 26% in November, down from 29% in October and from 32% in November 2020. 

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, low inventory kept prices up in November…

“Supply-chain disruptions for building new homes and labor shortages have hindered bringing more inventory to the market…Therefore, housing prices continue to march higher due to the near record-low supply levels.”