Now that the data is in, we can say that September sales did indeed drop dramatically. Total existing home sales fell 8% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.04 million units, compared to 5.48 million (revised downwards from 5.5 million) in August. That is more than 19% less than a year ago, when 6.23 million units were sold. Third-quarter numbers, however, were better than expected, with an annual sales rate of 5.42 million, somewhat higher than the NAR’s forecast of 5.38 million (unless numbers get revised again).
We now have a 10-month supply of homes on the market and it seems unlikely that this surplus inventory will be sold before the end of the year. As usual, Lawrence Yun, NAR’s senior economist, provided some comment, which I will not quote, because it is more of the same “all is good talk”, as usually wrapped in shiny complicated terminology that failed to conceal the underlying emptiness. Here’s a link to the press release for anyone interested.
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