July 2016 Existing-Home Sales

NAR released a summary of existing-home sales data showing that housing market activity had its first year over year decline since November 2015. July’s existing-home sales slipped to the 5.39 million seasonally adjusted annual rate and existing-home sales are down 1.6 percent from a year ago.
The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $244,100 in July, up 5.3 percent from a year ago.
Regionally, all four regions showed growth in prices from a year ago, with the South leading at 6.6 percent. The West had an increase of 6.4 percent, and the Midwest followed with a 5.0 percent increase. The Northeast had the smallest gain of 3.3 percent from July 2015.
From June, three regions experienced declines in sales with the West being the only region to have an increase of 2.5 percent. The Northeast had the biggest regional dip in sales with decline of 13.2 percent. The Midwest had a decline of 5.2 percent while the sales in the South declined 1.8 percent.
All regions showed a dip in sales from a year ago except the Midwest where sales remained flat. The Northeast had the biggest drop of 5.7 percent followed by the South with a decline of 1.8 percent. The West had the smallest drop of 0.8 percent. The South leads all regions in percentage of national sales at 41.2 percent while the Northeast has the smallest share at 12.2 percent.
July’s inventory figures are slightly up 0.9 percent from last month to 2.13 million homes for sale and the level is below historical averages. Inventories are down 5.8 percent from a year ago. It will take 4.7 months to move the current level of inventory at the current sales pace. It takes approximately 36 days for a home to go from listing to a contract in the current housing market, but down from 42 days a year ago.
Single family sales decreased 2.0 percent while condos also had a more significant decline of 12.3 percent compared to last month. Single family home sales declined 0.8 percent and condo sales are also down 8.1 percent from a year ago. Both single family and condos had an increase in price with single family up 5.4 percent and condos up 4.1 percent from July 2015.