The headlines for existing home sales improved declined but say that this was “the housing market’s best year since the Great Recession [but] ended on a healthy but somewhat softer note”. Our analysis of the unadjusted data agrees.
Analyst Opinion of Existing Home Sales
Last month’s home sales were elevated by anticipation of higher mortgage interest rates – and this month’s sales reversed last months surge. Still it was a good year, but lack of inventory is going to continue to drive home prices higher and constrain real growth in this sector.
Econintersect Analysis
- Unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 18.8 % month-over-month, up 0.2 % year-over-year – sales growth rate trend slightly decelerated using the 3 month moving average.
- Unadjusted price rate of growth decelerated 1.9 % month-over-month, up 3.0 % year-over-year – price growth rate trend slightly decelerated using the 3 month moving average.
- The homes for sale inventory significantly declined this again this month, remains historically low for Decembers, and is down 7.7 % from inventory levels one year ago).
NAR reported:
- Sales down 2.8 % month-over-month, up 0.7 % year-over-year.
- Prices up 4.0 % year-over-year
- The market expected annualized sales volumes of 5.450 M to 5.590 M (consensus 5.538 million) vs the 5.45 million reported.
The graph below presents unadjusted home sales volumes.
Here are the headline words from the NAR analysts:
