February 2018 Existing-Home Sales

Posted March 27, 2018

NAR released a summary of existing-home sales data showing that housing market activity this February bounced back 3.0 percent from last month and rose 1.1 percent from last year. February’s Existing-Home sales reached 5.54 million seasonally adjusted annual rate.
The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $241,700 in January, up 5.9 percent from a year ago. This marks the 72nd consecutive month of year over year gains.
Regionally, all four regions showed growth in prices from a year ago, with the West leading all regions with an incline of 9.6 percent. The South had a gain of 5.4 percent followed by the Midwest with a gain of 4.5 percent. The Northeast had the smallest gain of 3.6 percent from February 2017.

February’s inventory figures are up 4.6 percent from last month to 1.59 million homes for sale. Fewer homes are available with inventory down 8.1 percent from a year ago, marking 33 months of year over year declines. It will take 3.4 months to move the current level of inventory at the current sales pace. Transactions are moving faster and it takes approximately 37 days for a home to go from listing to a contract in the current housing market, down from 45 days a year ago.

From January, two of the four regions experienced declines in sales. The Northeast had the biggest decline of 12.3 percent followed by the Midwest with a drop of 2.4 percent. The South increased 6.6 percent followed by the West, which had the biggest gain of 11.4 percent.
Two of the four regions showed inclines in sales from a year ago while the Midwest was flat. The South had the biggest gain in sales of 3.4 percent followed by the West with an increase of 2.4 percent. The West had the only drop in sales of 7.2 percent. The South led all regions in percentage of national sales, accounting for 43.5 percent of the total, while the Northeast had the smallest share at 11.6 percent.

In February, single-family sales increased 4.2 percent and condominiums sales fell 6.5 percent compared to last month. Single-family home sales rose 1.8 percent and condominium sales were down 4.9 percent compared to a year ago. Both single-family and condominiums had an increase in price with single-family up 5.9 percent at $243,400 and condominiums up 5.7 percent at $227,300 from February 2017.

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