The spring home shopping season has so far been a bit of a bust.
Existing-home sales in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.43 million, down 0.4% compared with a downwardly revised rate of 5.45 million in April and down 3.0% compared with May 2017, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
The decrease comes after sales fell 2.5% in April and barely eked out an increase of 0.4% in March.
Regionally, only the Northeast saw an uptick in activity in May. Sales there increased 4.6%, but were were down 11.7% compared with a year earlier.
Sales fell 2.3% month-over-month in the Midwest; 0.8% in the West; and 0.4% in the South.
“Closings were down in a majority of the country last month and declined on an annual basis in each major region,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist for NAR, in a statement. “Incredibly low supply continues to be the primary impediment to more sales, but there’s no question the combination of higher prices and mortgage rates are pinching the budgets of prospective buyers, and ultimately keeping some from reaching the market.”
The median existing-home price for all housing types (single-family homes, condos and co-ops) in May was $264,800, up 4.9% from $252,500 in May 2017 to reach an all-time high.
It was the the 75th straight month of year-over-year price gains.
As of the end of May, there were about 1.85 million existing homes available for sale in the U.S., up 2.8% compared with April but down 6.1% compared with May 2017. That’s about a 4.1-month supply at the current sales pace.
Properties typically stayed on the market for 26 days in May, unchanged from April and down from 27 days a year earlier. Fifty-eight percent of homes sold in May were on the market for less than a month.
“Inventory coming onto the market during this year’s spring buying season – as evidenced again by last month’s weak reading – was not even close to being enough to satisfy demand,” Yun says. “That is why home prices keep outpacing incomes and listings are going under contract in less than a month – and much faster – in many parts of the country.”
All-cash sales were 21% of transactions in May, unchanged from April and down from 22% percent a year earlier.
Distressed sales were 3% of all sales in May, down from 4% in April and down from 5% in May 2017 to reach the lowest percentage since NAR began tracking distressed sales in October 2008.
