Redfin: Home Sales Post First Annual Decline in 15 Months
(Chart courtesy of Redfin.)
Redfin, Seattle, reported home sales fell on a monthly and annual basis in August for the first time since May 2020, although home prices continued to rise at a double-digit annual pace.
The report said seasonally adjusted home sales in August fell by 6% from a year earlier, the first annual decline in 15 months. They fell by 1.4% from July. Home sales fell in 44 of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks from a year ago.
The national median home-sale price, however, rose by 16% year over year to $380,271 in August, marking the 13th consecutive month of double-digit price gains but the lowest growth rate since February.
“When it comes to home prices in this market, what goes up stays up,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “That’s especially true in the Sun Belt; home prices are up more than 20% from last year in Austin and Phoenix. Even with these steep increases, homes in these areas are still relatively affordable, so these and other hot migration destinations are going to continue to attract homebuyers from the coasts. As workers change jobs en masse and enhanced unemployment benefits come to an end, we could see even more households relocate for affordability in the coming months.”
Redfin reported biggest sales declines were seen in New Orleans (-23%), Salt Lake City (-16%) and Warren, Mich. (-14%). Largest gains were in places where sales were still somewhat depressed a year ago, including New York (+65%), Honolulu (+47%) and Nassau County, N.Y. (+32%).
Median sale prices increased from a year earlier in all but two of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks: MilwaukeeI (-1.6%) and Bridgeport, Conn. (-1.1%). Both of these metro areas had already seen significant price gains a year ago, with prices up 14% and 30% respectively, compared to a 11% gain nationally. Largest price increases in August were in Austin, Texas (+36%), followed by Phoenix (+25%) and Salt Lake City (+24%).
The report said seasonally adjusted active listings—the count of all homes that were for sale at any time during the month—fell 19% year over year, the smallest decline since April. Only four of the 85 largest metros tracked by Redfin posted a year-over-year increase in the number of seasonally adjusted active listings of homes for sale. New listings fell from a year ago in 56 of the 85 largest metro areas.
The report also noted the typical home that sold in August went under contract in 16 days—about half as much time as a year earlier, when homes sold in a median 31 days, but up one day from the record low in June. Redfin said 52% of homes sold above list price, down 4 percentage points from the record high in June but up 20 percentage points from a year earlier. The average sale-to-list price ratio also dipped slightly in July to 101.6%, down from a record high of 102.5% in June but up from 99.2% a year earlier.
