After March's mixed signals from the housing market (Pending and Existing sales down, New Home sales up), the first glimpse of April comes today with Existing home sales expected to rise modestly (+1.0%) from the 3.7% drop in March (and 6.3% drop in Feb). However, April Existing Home Sales unexpectedly tumbled for the third straight month (down 2.7% MoM), dramatically missing expectations.
Source: Bloomberg
Obviously the YoY figure of +33.87% is just noise from the COVID collapse lows.
This is the lowest SAAR (5.85mm vs 6.07mm exp vs 6.01mm prior) since June 2020...
Source: Bloomberg
Price was the issue as it soared to a new record high...
But sales of homes over $1 million soared...
The sales decline in April “is due to the lack of homes on the market,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said on a call with reporters.
“Even with home sales declining modestly, one can describe the market as being hot.”
There were 1.16 million homes for sale at the end of last month, down 20.5% from a year earlier. It would take 2.4 months at the current pace to sell all the homes on the market. A year ago, it was 4 months. Realtors see anything below five months of supply as a sign of a tight market.
Three of four regions posted sales declines in April, led by a 3.9% decrease in the Northeast and a 3.7% drop in South. Contract closings fell 3.1% in the West and increased 0.8% in the Midwest
And, as we have noted recently, the enthusiasm of homebuilders (near record highs) is mirrored almost...