September 2018 Existing-Home Sales

Posted October 20, 2018

NAR released a summary of existing-home sales data showing that housing market activity this September was down 3.4 percent from last month, and dropped 4.1 percent from last year. September’s existing-home sales reached a 5.15 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, which was the lowest since November 2015 when the index reached 4.78 million.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $258,100 in September, up 4.2 percent from a year ago. This marks the 79th consecutive month of year-over-year gains.

Regionally, all four regions showed growth in prices from a year ago, with the West and Northeast both having the biggest advance of 4.1 percent. The South had a gain of 3.0 percent. The Midwest had the smallest gain of 1.9 percent from September 2017.
September’s inventory figures are down from last month to 1.88 million homes for sale. Compared with September of 2017, there was a 1.1 percent increase in inventory levels. It will take 4.4 months to move the current level of inventory at the current sales pace. It takes approximately 32 days for a home to go from listing to a contract in the current housing market, down from 34 days a year ago.

From August 2018, three of the four regions experienced declines in sales. The South had the biggest decline of 5.4 percent followed by the West with a dip in sales of 3.6 percent. The Northeast had a dip of 2.9 percent. The Midwest region was flat showing no change in sales.
All four regions showed declines in sales from a year ago. The West had the biggest drop in sales of 12.2 percent. The Northeast had a decline of 5.6 percent followed by the Midwest with a decline of 1.5 percent. The South had the smallest drop in sales of 0.5 percent. The South led all regions in percentage of national sales, accounting for 41.0 percent of the total, while the Northeast had the smallest share at 13.2 percent.

In September, single-family and condominiums sales were both down 3.4 percent compared to last month. Single-family home sales fell 4.0 percent and condominium sales were down 5.0 compared to a year ago. Both single-family and condominiums had an increase in price with single-family up 4.6 percent at $260,500 and condominiums up 1.50 percent at $239,200 from September 2017.

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