Existing home sales bucked a four-month downward trend in July, increasing by 1.3% month over month, and bringing the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate to 3.95 million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Also on the rise in July was the number of houses on the market. Inventories at the month’s end had reached 1.33 million units, up 0.8% from June and rising a blistering 19.8% from one year ago. The supply of unsold homes on the market reached a four-month supply at the current sales pace, up from the 3.3 months’ supply available in July 2023.
The good news was tempered by the fact that year-over-year existing home sales were down 2.5% from the annual pace of 4.05 million units that was seen in July 2023.
“Despite the modest gain, home sales are sluggish,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yu. “But consumers are definitely seeing more choices, and affordability is improving due to lower interest rates.”
The existing home sales, which included completed transactions for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, varied greatly by region. The highest number of sales by far were in the South, where homes were changing hands at an annual rate of 1.79 million units. Still, those figures were down 3.8% year over year, signaling that even the nation’s hottest real estate market was losing steam.
Midwest sales were flat month over month at 920,000 units but down 5.2% from the previous year. In the West, the pace of home sales was up 1.4% for the month and for the year at 750,000 units. The region with the largest percentage growth was the Northeast, which climbed 4.3% from the previous month and 2.1% from July 2023, with sales at an annual rate of 490,000 units.
Even with a drop in the pace of yearly sales, housing prices continued rising in July. The median existing home price for all housing types in July reached $422,600, up 4.2% from a year ago. The median existing single-family home reached $428,500, up 4.2%. Condominiums, which suffered a drop of 11.6% in annual sales from 2023 levels, still notched a 2.7% year-over-year median price increase to $367,500.
