Chicago's NAR says existing home sales tumble as supply restrain, record prices weigh

• Financial

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR), an American real estate trade association having had more than 1.3 million members, said in a monthly report that US home sales had been slumped for a fourth straight month in a row in May as a double-whammy of record-high prices alongside a decline in inventories that would likely to persist for a while in line with soaring timber prices, had been keeping prospective buyers at bay.

In point of fact, a decline in US home sales last month was largely converged on single-family housing segment which had been largely benefitted from a pandemic-led rise in work-from-employees as millions of pandemic-wary Americans appeared to be seeking safety in countryside and suburbs following a steep rise in the cases on densely populated US cities last year.

On top of that, National Association of Realtor data had also unwrapped US home sales were retreating back to their pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that a Newtonian upsurge in US housing market last year which had anchored the US economy during pandemic-led fiscal upheavals, too, might have come to an end.

US home sales slumped as higher prices, low supply weigh

According to Washington DC-based National Association of Realtor data released earlier on the day, US existing home sales declined 0.9 per cent to a seasonally adjusted 5.80 million units last month on an annualized basis, while the median prices of US existing house prices skyrocketed 23.6 per cent to a record $350,300 in May on a year-on-year basis.

Meanwhile, as a pandemic-led tailwind in a sharply weakening US housing market seemed to be waning, an economist at Zillow, Mathew Speakman said following the data, “It's becoming clear that record-high price growth and an enduring shortage of available homes are beginning to hinder would-be homebuyers. Sales volume continues to struggle to regain the momentum it built late last year. ”