A house for sale on December 17, 2020 in Scituate, Massachusetts.
Matt Stone | MediaNews Group | Getty Images
After five consecutive months of earnings, closed sales of existing homes fell in November.
They decreased by 2.5% from one month to another, at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.69 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales increased strongly by 25.8% year-on-year.
While demand for homes is still high, fueled in part by the culture of the coronavirus pandemic at home, supply is incredibly low. This is detrimental to both sales and accessibility.
“This latest decline could be due to the fact that house prices are rising rapidly. Job creation could also be created in the last two months, so that consumer confidence has been affected,” said Lawrence Yun, an economist. head for the association. “No alarm or concern about the latest monthly decline.”
At the end of November, there were only 1.28 million homes available for sale. It decreased by 22% compared to a year ago and represents an offer of 2.3 months in the current pace of sales. This is the lowest number of inventories since realtors began tracking this value in 1982. The number of new registrations is actually about 10% compared to November 2019, but demand is rapidly absorbing this offer.
Houses sold at the fastest rate recorded, spending on average only 21 days on the market. Last year, the houses were sold in 38 days, which was also considered fast.
The growing imbalance between supply and demand has made house prices rise faster than might be healthy for the market. The average price of an existing house sold in November was 310,800 USD, an increase of 14.6% compared to November 2019.
This measure of the median price indicates the place where sales are most active, which is at the upper end of the market. Home sales at prices below $ 100,000 fell 22% from a year ago. Those with prices between 100,000 and 250,000 dollars increased by only 2%. Sales in the upper part of the market, at prices between 750,000 and 1 million dollars, increased by 85% compared to a year ago.
Low mortgage rates help fuel demand at every price. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was slightly above 3% for most of October, but then sank in November to the 2% range and hovered around record lows for most of the year. month. This gave buyers more buying power, but added heat to overheating house prices.
Sales of new homes built in October, which are measured by signed contracts, were 41.5% higher than in October 2019, according to the US census. Builders have benefited from the lack of existing homes for sale, but are struggling to keep up with demand.
Even though December marks the traditionally slower housing season, pedestrian traffic from buyers, as measured by real estate foreclosures on the front door of homes, rose 16% from a year ago.
The National Association of Realtors now predicts total home sales in 2020 at about 5.7 million, the highest level in 14 years.
“Circumstances are far from returning to normal pre-pandemic,” Yun said. “However, with the latest stimulus package and the ongoing vaccine distribution, as well as a very strong demand for ownership of still predominant housing, a robust increase is for 2021.”