The existing home sales in the U.S. recovered in October by rising 1.9 percent sequentially to 5.46 million units. The outturn was greatly in line with consensus forecast of a rise of 2 percent. The increase was mainly seen in the single-family market segment, where sales rose 100k to 4.87 million units, or up 2.1 percent, on the month. The smaller condo/co-op segment stayed the same at 590k units.
Home resale activity came in mixed across the regions. Sales rose 4.4 percent in the South and 1.6 percent in the Midwest. They dropped a bit by 0.9 percent in the West and by a larger 1.4 percent in Northeast.
The number of homes available for sale dropped to a seasonally unadjusted 1.77 million units from 1.83 million in September, and is down 4.3 percent year-on-year. At the current sales rate, unsold inventory came in at a 3.9-month supply, down from 4.1 months in September. Low inventory levels continue to place upward pressure on prices. The median existing home price rose 6.2 percent year-on-year in October.
“The resale market continues to suffer from a dearth of available properties as inventory levels continued to fall – now four straight months of negative year-on-year performance. This has kept prices elevated and stymied additional activity. As these two forces interact, the real estate market will remain volatile, but is likely to continue its modest upward trend over the next year”, said TD Economics in a research report.
