It’s the latest Ten-X Residential Real Estate Nowcast projects existing home sales to remain fairly steady in July. The Nowcast model reveals that July existing home sales will fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.41 and 5.77 million, with a targeted number of 5.59 million – a 0.3 percent increase from June and a 0.1 percent year-over-year gain.
“The housing market continues to recover, despite low inventory and price appreciation that makes affordability an issue in some of the hotter markets,” Ten-X Executive Vice President Rick Sharga said in the news release. “Market dynamics continue to shift to a more normal state, with fewer distressed property sales, less investor activity, and slightly more first-time buyers in the market.”
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently reported a 3 percent year-over-year increase in sales to 5.57 million units in June – nearly identical to the figure of 5.56 reported in last month's Ten-X Residential Real Estate Nowcast. This marks the fourth consecutive monthly gain as sales remain at their highest annual rate since February 2007.
NAR also reported a 4.8 percent year-over-year increase in median existing home prices to $247,700 for June, marking the 52nd consecutive month of year-over-year gains and nearly matching the prediction of $243,833 that Ten-X made in last month's report.
“The sales gains made in recent months continue to point to the overall health of the housing market, having now brushed aside the externally driven volatility seen earlier this year,” Ten-X Chief Economist Peter Muoio said. “While the U.S. housing market continues to face headwinds, June's strong employment gain has helped ease fears of a slowdown, and healthier wage growth and low interest should continue to fuel strong underlying demand.”