Final Look at Local Housing Markets in May and a Look Ahead to June Sales
After the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) releases the monthly existing home sales report, I pick up additional local market data that is reported after the NAR. This is the final look at local markets in May.
The big stories for May were that existing home sales decreased to 4.11 million on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR) - the 33rd consecutive month with a year-over-year decline - and new listings were up YoY for the 8th consecutive month.
Regionally, inventory continues to increase sharply in Florida and Texas.
NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to May 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available).
Closed sales in May were mostly for contracts signed in March and April when 30-year mortgage rates averaged 6.82% and 6.99%, respectively (Freddie Mac PMMS). This is down from the 7%+ mortgage rates in the August through November period (although rates are now back above 7% again).
Active Inventory in May
Here is a summary of active listings for these early reporting housing markets.
Inventory is up 27.5% year-over-year. Last month inventory in these markets was up 22.0% YoY. A key will be how much inventory builds over the next couple of months.
Inventory is down in most of these areas compared to 2019. The exception is Jacksonville as inventory continues to surge in Florida. Note that inventory in the Miami area was high in 2019 due to a large number of condos for sales in metro Miami. Most of the Miami area is now above 2019 levels of inventory.
Notes for all tables:
New additions to table in BOLD.
Northwest (Seattle), Jacksonville Source: Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS®
Totals do not include Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis (included in state totals)
Comparison to 2019 ONLY includes local markets with available 2019 data!
New Listings in May
And here is a table for new listings in May (some areas don’t report new listings). For these areas, new listings were up 12.6% year-over-year.
Last month, new listings in these markets were up 20.2% year-over-year.
New listings are now up year-over-year, but still at historically low levels. New listings in all of these areas are down compared to January 2019 activity (except Jacksonville is up).
Closed Sales in May
And a table of May sales.
In May, sales in these markets were down 0.1% YoY. In April, these same markets were up 7.6% year-over-year Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).
Sales in all of these markets are down compared to May 2019.
This was a 0.1% year-over-year decrease NSA for these markets. This is close to the 1.0% year-over-year decline NSA reported by the NAR.
June sales will be mostly for contracts signed in April and May, and mortgage rates increased slightly to an average of 7.06% in May. My early expectation is we will see existing home sales at above the same level in June as compared to May, on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR).
Note for next month (June sales): There were two fewer working days in June 2024 compared to June 2023 (19 vs 21), so seasonally adjusted sales will be much higher than the NSA data suggests.
This graph shows existing home sales by month for 2023 and 2024. This was the thirty-third consecutive month with sales down year-over-year. Sometime this year sales will likely be up year-over-year, just because sales were so low in the 2nd half of 2023.
Sales in June 2023 were reported at 4.11 million SAAR.
More local data coming in July for activity in June!