Home sales fell again in September as surging mortgage rates, rising prices discouraged homebuyers
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell for the fourth month in a row in September, held back by surging mortgage rates and a thin supply of properties on the market
LOS ANGELES — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes in September fell for the fourth month in a row, grinding to their slowest pace in more than a decade as prospective homebuyers grapple with surging mortgage rates and a near historic-low level of properties on the market.
Existing home sales fell 2% last month from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.96 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s just above the 3.9 million unit pace that economists were expecting, according to FactSet. But it's the slowest sales pace since October 2010, when the market was still choked by foreclosures following the housing bust several years earlier.
Sales sank 15.4% compared with the same month last year and are down 21% through the first nine months of the year versus the same period in 2022.
Despite the housing market slump, home prices kept climbing versus a year ago. The national median sales price rose 2.8% from September last year to $394,300. It slipped 3.1% from August.
“Clearly, the story of limited inventory and rising and rising mortgage rates continues to hinder the home sales market,” said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.
Yun also said he expects mortgage rates will ease by next spring.
“I think this is the top,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have a few months of very difficult sales because of this high interest rate, but things should be improving next year.”
The weekly average rate on a 30-year mortgage moved above 7% in August, when many of the home sales that were finalized in September would have gone under
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