Existing Home Sales Dip in August
Looking back at August, we can see that sales of existing homes dipped 4.8% from July’s 5.58 million units to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 5.31 million units, despite low prices and reasonable mortgage rates. This decline is cutting off three consecutive months of increases.
However, the news is not all bad. Though August was down from July, it represents a year-over-year increase of 6.2%. This is the eleventh consecutive month wherein we have seen year-over-year improvement of existing home sales.
Meanwhile, prices continue to go up. The median price for existing homes was $228,700 in August, which comes to an increase of 4.7% over the $218,400 we saw in August of 2014. This is the 42nd consecutive year-over-year gain in existing home prices.
Though inventory continues to be a big problem, August showed an increase of 1.3% to 2.29 million homes. This comes out to a 5.2 month supply, compared to the 4.9 month supply in July. However, this inventory is 1.7% lower than what was experienced in August of 2014.
