This morning’s release of the July Existing-Home Sales decreased from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.34 million units. The Investing.com consensus was for 5.44 million. The latest number represents a 0.7% decrease from the previous month and a 1.5% decrease year-over-year.
Here is an excerpt from today’s report from the National Association of Realtors.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the continuous solid gains in home prices have now steadily reduced demand. “Led by a notable decrease in closings in the Northeast, existing home sales trailed off again last month, sliding to their slowest pace since February 2016 at 5.21 million,” he said. “Too many would-be buyers are either being priced out, or are deciding to postpone their search until more homes in their price range come onto the market.” [Full Report]
For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which comes from the National Association of Realtors. The data since January 1999 was previously available in the St. Louis Fed’s FRED repository and is now only available from January 2018. It can be found here.
Over this time frame, we clearly see the Real Estate Bubble, which peaked in 2005 and then fell dramatically. Sales were volatile for the first year or so following the Great Recession.
The Population-Adjusted Reality
Now let’s examine the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau’s mid-month population estimates show an 18.2% increase in the US population since the turn of the century. The snapshot below is an overlay of the NAR’s annualized estimates with a population-adjusted version.
Existing-home sales are 2.1% above the NAR’s January 2000 estimate. The population-adjusted version is 12.6% below the turn-of-the-century sales.
Existing-Home Sales Median Prices for Single Family Homes
We’ve added a chart for the last 12 months of Existing-home sales median prices for single-family homes for reference.
