Hopefully, everyone is staying warm on this snowy May day. It is fitting weather giving the slowdown in existing home sales.
National existing home sales declined 0.4% in April 2019 after falling 4.9% month over month in March 2019. This is worrisome because during this two-month period mortgage rates have been falling to almost a one-year low. This is also the 14th month in a row of annual declines, which now makes it the longest stretch of declines since the housing crisis that occurred over a decade ago.
National single-family units fell 1.1% month over month while condos were up an impressive 5.6% in April 2019. Housing supply increased nationally from 3.8 to 4.2 months, which is the highest since October 2018, this is a good sign for lower long term prices. A healthy market typically has 6 months of supply so nationally there is still a shortage of existing homes for sale.
The Northeast was hardest hit down 4.5% month over month and our home region of the West up 1.8%. This is consistent with the strong April data we saw that had single-family housing hitting an all-time high for home prices.
We see May 2019 average single-family home price in the range of $541,000 to $547,000 based on this data. We have also added a new Disque commenting section and updated our social media buttons, tell us what you think in the comments or over social media.
Image source: Zero Hedge