Sales of existing homes in the United States fell in August, and no region was spared in the stall, the National Association of Realtors said in a report Monday. There was a 5.2 months supply of unsold inventory in August, up from 4.9 months in July. “With almost three-quarters of the year in the books, home sales are up more than 6 percent compared to 2014”.
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“Given stronger job growth, and low rates that are going to be sticking around for at least a little while longer, the USA housing market is still in good shape”, Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. These existing home resales sold at a median price of $228,700 this month, meaning that median prices fell 1.3% from last month.
Existing-home sales in the West tumbled 7.8% to an annual rate of 1.19 million in August and remain 7.2% above a year ago.
There were a few other noteworthy points within the report: firstly, the July figure showed a downward revision to 5.58 million existing home sales, but this is still an 8-year high for this reading.
“The August decline in home sales seems to be a hiccup given that sales are still trending upward over the past year and that the residential construction pipeline is also expanding”, said Andres Carbacho-Burgos of Moody’s Analytics.
“Sales returned to a more modest long-term annual growth rate in August while prices continued to increase”, said Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, director of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL) at the University of Illinois. “The sales activity still seems to be increasing in the higher price ranges, highlighting the bifurcation of housing markets – better performance of higher price segments and lack of activity in the lower price segments”.
All homes were on the market for an average of 47 days in August, up from 42 days in July. Prices climbed and the number of homes on the market decreased from the same time a year ago. From our data, the percentage of distressed sales among the total sales for the Chicago PMSA was 13.5 percent in August.
Compared with a year earlier, purchases increased 5.4 percent in August before adjusting for seasonal variations. August’s price increase marks the 42nd consecutive month of year-over-year gains.
In the Midwest, existing-home sales declined by 1.5% to an annual rate of 1.28 million in August, but remain 5.8% above August 2014 sales. Five percent of August sales were foreclosures and 2 percent were short sales. The median price in the Midwest was $181,100, up 4% from a year ago.
Distressed sales remained at 7 percent for the second month, the lowest rate since October 2008.
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The August 2015 statewide median sales price was $252,500, a 7.4-percent increase from the August 2014 median of $235,000. The median price in the South was $196,300, up 6% from a year ago. The median price in the West was $321,300, which is 7.1% above July 2014.
