NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.00 million SAAR in August

From the NAR: NAR Existing-Home Sales Report Shows 0.2% Decrease in August

• 0.2% decrease in total existing-home sales1 month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.0 million.

• 1.8% increase in sales year-over-year.

• 1.53 million units: Total housing inventory, down 1.3% from July and up 11.7% from August 2024 (1.37 million).

• 4.6-month supply of unsold inventory, no change from July and up from 4.2 months in August 2024.

• $422,600: Median existing-home price3 for all housing types, up 2.0% from one year ago ($414,200) – the 26th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases.

emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows existing home sales, on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis since 1994.

Sales in August (4.00 million SAAR) were down 0.2% from the previous month and were up 1.8% compared to the August 2024 sales rate.

The second graph shows nationwide inventory for existing homes.

According to the NAR, inventory decreased to 1.53 million in August from 1.55 million the previous month.

Headline inventory is not seasonally adjusted, and inventory usually decreases to the seasonal lows in December and January, and peaks in mid-to-late summer.

The last graph shows the year-over-year (YoY) change in reported existing home inventory and months-of-supply. Since inventory is not seasonally adjusted, it really helps to look at the YoY change. Note: Months-of-supply is based on the seasonally adjusted sales and not seasonally adjusted inventory.

Inventory was up 11.7% year-over-year (blue) in August compared to August 2024.

Months of supply (red) was unchanged at 4.6 months in August from 4.6 months the previous month.

I’ll have more later.