ARLINGTON, Va.—Existing home sales declined by 0.4% in August to a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of 4.8 million units.
This represents a 19.9% decrease in sales compared to 2021.
“Existing home sales fell for the seventh straight month in August, but by the smallest amount of any month within that period,” said NAFCU Chief Economist and Vice President of Research Curt Long.
The median existing home price declined by 2.4% in August to $389,500, which Long said is “in line with typical seasonal changes at the end of summer.”
“Inflation and Fed rate hikes have pushed mortgage rates to more than 6%, sidelining many potential buyers,” added Long. “However, supply remains extremely tight, which is supporting current price levels.”
A Quarter’s Worth of Supply
Based on current sales, there were 3.2 months of supply at the end of August. Analysts consider six months of inventory a rough balance between supply and demand.
“In response to lower demand for homes, renters saw the largest monthly increase in prices since 1991 in August,” said Long. “Homes on the market sold in an average of 16 days last month, which was up 2 days from July, but still down from 17 days in August of 2021.”
Sales fell in just one region of the U.S., the Midwest (-3.3%). Sales rose in the Northeast (1.6%), as well as in the West (1.1%). In the South, sales remained unchanged.
The Forecast
“NAFCU expects home sales to settle near the current, lower level over the near term as mortgage rates prevent improvement, but a strong labor market and resilient demand prevents further decline,” concluded Long.
The Very Best in CU Reporting. For You. For Free. Or Your Money Back.
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.