US Existing Home Sales Disappoint In April, Despite Lower Mortgage Rates

With the Spring selling season already in tatters, existing home sales were expected to rebound in April very modestly (+2.0% MoM) off recent record lows. However, the rebound was far less than expected, up just 0.2% MoM, which left sales of existing homes unchanged YoY...

Source: Bloomberg

Total existing home sales SAAR hover just above 4.00 million homes...

Source: Bloomberg

The NAR report showed the median selling price rose 0.9% from a year earlier to $417,700 last month - the highest for any April on record.

Source: Bloomberg

The inventory of previously owned homes increased from a year ago to 1.47 million - the most for any April since 2019.

Source: Bloomberg

“Even though it’s the highest inventory post-Covid, we are not close to the pre-Covid April inventory of 1.83 million,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said on a call with reporters.

Contract closings rose in the Midwest and South, according to the NAR. They fell to a three-month low in the West.

Finally, it appears home sales are becoming less and less elastic relative to mortgage rates (which had fallen notably during the period of reporting)..

Source: Bloomberg

And, as the chart shows, mortgage rates are recently on the rise again...which will not help the situation at all.