Existing-home sales fell less than expected but still ended up in the red for the seventh month in a row, according to the National Association of Realtors monthly report.
- M-O-M: Total existing-home sales saw a slight dip of 0.4% from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.80 million in August.
- Y-O-Y: Existing-home sales are now down 19.9% when compared to the same time last year.
Regionally. The Northeast had the best month with sales up 1.6% to an annual rate of 630k followed by the West up 1.1% (880k), the South unchanged (2.13M), and the Midwest had the only down month with a 1.3% drop to an annual rate of 1.16M.
- The South now makes up 44% of all sales activity in the country despite being down 19.3% year-over-year. The West is having the worst year as sales are now down 29% from August 2021 while the Northeast is doing the best with sales down 13.7% compared to last year. The Midwest is down 15.9%.
Slowing Prices. The median existing-home price for all housing types in August was $389,500, a 7.7% jump from August 2021. While still up year-over-year prices were down 3.5% from July when annual growth was 10.8%.
- Despite the dip month-over-month, August marked the 126th consecutive month of year-over-year increases, the longest-running streak on record.
- The South was the only region with double-digit growth at 12.4% ($356k) followed by the the West (+7.1%), the Midwest (+6.6%), and the Northeast (+1.5%).
Inventory. Still no signs of the that “inventory Armageddon” we heard so much about these last few months. Total housing inventory actually fell 1.5% to 1,280,000 units at the end of August, this was unchanged from the previous year.
- Properties typically remained on the market for 16 days in August, up from 14 days in July and down from 17 days in August 2021.
- 80% of homes sold in August were on the market for less than a month.
Analysis. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says rising rates will incentive homeowners to stay put keeping inventory levels low for some time to come. “Inventory will remain tight in the coming months and even for the next couple of years,” Yun added. “Some homeowners are unwilling to trade up or trade down after locking in historically-low mortgage rates in recent years, increasing the need for more new-home construction to boost supply.”