U.S. Existing Home Sales Fall To Eleven-Month Low In November

(RTTNews) - Existing home sales in the U.S. fell by more than expected in the month of November, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday.

NAR said existing home sales dropped 4.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.90 million in November after falling 3.2 percent to 5.12 million in October. Economists had expected existing home sales to dip to an annual rate of 5.02 million.

Existing home sales fell for the third consecutive month, dropping to their lowest level since a matching rate in December of 2012.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said, "Home sales are hurt by higher mortgage interest rates, constrained inventory and continuing tight credit."

"There is a pent-up demand for both rental and owner-occupied housing as household formation will inevitably burst out, but the bottleneck is in limited housing supply, due to the slow recovery in new home construction," he added.

With the monthly decrease, existing home sales in November were down by 1.2 percent compared to the same month a year ago, reflecting the first year-over-year drop in 29 months.

The report said the national median existing-home price was $196,300 in November, down 0.6 percent from $197,500 in October but up 9.4 percent from $179,400 in November of 2012.

Distressed homes accounted for 14 percent of November sales compared to 22 percent a year ago. NAR said the smaller share of distressed sales is contributing to price growth.

NAR also said total housing inventory fell 0.9 percent to 2.09 million existing homes available for sale at the end of November compared to 2.11 million at the end of October.

The housing inventory represents 5.1 months supply at the current sales pace compared with 4.9 months of supply in October.

Additionally, the report said single-family home sales fell 3.8 percent to an annual rate of 4.32 million in November, while existing condominium and co-op sales tumbled 7.9 percent to an annual rate of 580,000.

Next Tuesday, the Commerce Department is scheduled to release a separate report on new home sales in the month of November.