This morning's release of the July Existing-Home Sales showed that sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million units from the previous month's 5.11 million. The Investing.com consensus was for 4.89 million. The latest number represents a 5.9% decrease from the previous month and a 20.2% decrease YoY.

Here is an excerpt from today's report from the National Association of Realtors.

WASHINGTON (August 18, 2022) – Existing-home sales sagged for the sixth straight month in July, according to the National Association of REALTORS^®. All four major U.S. regions recorded month-over-month and year-over-year sales declines.

Total existing-home sales,¹ https://www.nar.realtor/existing-home-sales, completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, slipped 5.9% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million in July. Year-over-year, sales fell 20.2% (6.03 million in July 2021).

"The ongoing sales decline reflects the impact of the mortgage rate peak of 6% in early June," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Home sales may soon stabilize since mortgage rates have fallen to near 5%, thereby giving an additional boost of purchasing power to home buyers." [Full Report]

In terms of median home sales prices, here's the latest:

The median existing-home price³ for all housing types in June was $403,800, up 10.8% from July 2021 ($364,600), as prices increased in all regions. This marks 125 consecutive months of year-over-year increases, the longest-running streak on record.

For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which comes from the National Association of Realtors. The data since January 1999 was previously available in the St. Louis Fed's FRED repository and is now only available for the last twelve months.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Over this time frame, we clearly see the Real Estate Bubble, which peaked in 2005 and then fell dramatically. Sales were volatile for the first year or so following the Great Recession.

The Population-Adjusted Reality

Now let's examine the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show a 19.9% increase in the US population since the turn of the century. The snapshot below is an overlay of the NAR's annualized estimates with a population-adjusted version.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Existing-home sales are 8% below the NAR's January 2000 estimate. The population-adjusted version is 22.4% below the turn-of-the-century sales.

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