Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in June

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports released across the country through today, I project that existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.65 million in June, up 18.9% from May’s preliminary pace and down 12.6% from last June’s seasonally adjusted pace. Unadjusted sales should show a significantly smaller YOY decline, reflecting this June’s higher business day count than last June’s.

On the inventory front, local realtor/MLS data, as well as data from other inventory trackers, suggest that the inventory of existing homes for sale at the end of June will be down by a whopping 26% from a year earlier.

Finally, local realtor/MLS data suggest that the median US existing single-family home sales price last month was up by about 3.7% from last June.

While not all realtor reports include data on new pending sales – and some that do often revise those data significantly – the limited data available suggest that pending homes sales in June will be up from May, and will probably be up on a YOY basis as well.

CR Note: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is scheduled to release June existing home sales on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 at 10:00 AM ET. The consensus is for 4.86 million SAAR.