Existing-home sales posted monthly growth in September though remained below year-ago levels for the second consecutive month, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

The seasonally adjusted annual pace of existing-home sales increased to 3.99 million last month, up 1.5% from 3.98 million in August but down 2.2% from a year ago.

Housing experts found little to celebrate in the monthly figures, though. While the sales growth halted three straight months of declines, sales remained below 4 million units annually — on pace with a multiyear trend of 30-year lows in home sales.

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“Despite the small monthly gain on a seasonally adjusted basis, August and September marked the two slowest months for home sales this year,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a press release announcing the latest transaction figures.

The slight uptick in the pace of sales did not offset an expansion in unsold inventory, as sellers continue to outnumber buyers in the market amid challenging purchase affordability conditions. Overall unsold housing inventory rose 1.9% to 1.6 million last month, up 4.6% higher from last September.

Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist of First American Financial Corp., said Tuesday she wasn’t surprised by September’s figures.

“Our own internal model was saying that’s where we would be this month, right below 4 million annualized,” Kushi noted, speaking with Scotsman Guide on the sidelines of the MBA Annual conference in Chicago. “Given where rates are in September, which started trending higher, I think it was generally expected [due to] the strengthening of the rate lock-in effect for existing owners and making affordability conditions tougher for prospective buyers.”

Average mortgage rates for typical 30-year home loans rose from around 6.8% at the start of September to nearly 7.5% by the end of the month, according to Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) data. Freddie Mac rate indexes show a similarly precipitous rise in mortgage borrowing costs from about 6.7% to nearly 7.3% over the month.

However, existing-home sales reflect closed contract activity, meaning the September sales data reported by NAR on Tuesday mostly represents buyers and sellers that went under contract in August, when mortgage rates averaged between 6.7% and 6.8%.

September sales were weakest in the Northeast, where they slumped 2.1% from August compared to increases of 2.8% in the South and West and no change in the Midwest.

Sales declined from year-ago levels in all four regions, however. The West posted the largest yearly decline, where sales fell 5.2%, followed by a 4.1% decrease in the Northeast, 2.1% decline in the Midwest and 0.5% slide in the South.

The median existing-home price across all housing types remained 1.3% higher than a year ago at $417,500, according to the Realtor association’s latest data. 

“Even though existing-home sales rose, don’t think of this as a recovery,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, a data platform tailored to home builders. She added in remarks shared with Scotsman Guide that Tuesday’s report shows “a market clearing accumulated listings, not a wave of buyers coming in.”