ARLINGTON, Va.—Existing home sales declined 7.7% in November to a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of 4.1 million units, marking the 10th straight month of declining sales and a 35.4% decrease in sales compared to last year.
“The median home price declined for a fifth straight month following typical seasonal patterns; however, year-over-year prices are still up by 3.5%,” said NAFCU Economist Noah Yosif, citing National Association of Realtors’ data. “While mortgage rates peaked in November and have begun to retreat in recent weeks, their continued elevation above historic levels has hurt housing affordability, sidelining potential buyers, and reduced incentives for homeowners to list their properties, discouraging prospective sellers.”
Yosif also added that the National Association of Realtors observed that properties “typically remained on the market 24 days in November, three days longer than in October.”
“According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 6.5 job seekers to every job available in July of 2009, but almost two jobs for every job seeker in the current environment, indicating disparities in labor supply and demand have bolstered wages which, in turn, has sustained demand for housing beyond levels seen during the Great Recession,” stated Yosif.
Sales Down in All Regions
Sales fell in all four regions with a 12.5% decline in the West followed by the South (-7.1%), the Northeast (-7.0%), and the Midwest (-5.6%).
“Housing prices have been further supplemented by historically low inventory levels, as well as continued labor market growth, contributing to the brunt of the recent surge in inflation,” concluded Yosif. “Their continued cooling into the New Year could lead to a more robust pullback in inflation and persuade a more moderated monetary policy response from the Federal Reserve.”
Just in Time for the Holidays, CUToday’s Free Morning Headline Email is Now Double-Free!
Don’t forget to check your Spam/Junk email folder if you haven’t been receiving your free, popular and daily CUToday.info news headlines.
And if you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time.
CUToday.info has received very positive response from readers following the move to an improved provider of the daily headlines, but many also noted they did need to go to their Spam/Junk folder and mark it as safe.
The new email solution has not only improved every reader’s delivery experience, but it also features a fresh, new format that is easy to read, especially on mobile devices.
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com.