Home sales, the winners and losers

Existing home sales in April totaled 4.14mm, 90k below expectations, partly offset by an upward revision of 30k to March to 4.22mm. These are somewhat dated because an April closing would assume most contracts were signed in the January thru March time frame. These levels are also bouncing around near 30 yr lows.

Months’ supply rose to 3.5 and that is the most since November but it does usually tick up in the spring. Home prices continue to power on, higher by 5.7% y/o/y at the median level, further stretching budgets when tied with a 7%+ mortgage rate. First time buyers made up 33% of the purchases vs 32% in March and vs 29% one year ago.

The National Association of Realtors did say that more supply came on to the market at the ‘upper end’ and where more sales took place in response. They said, “For homes priced $1 million or more, inventory and sales increased by 34% and 40%, respectively, from a year ago.”