CALCULATEDRISK
By Bill McBride
After the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) releases the monthly existing home sales report, I pick up additional local market data that is reported after the NAR. This is the final look at local markets in December.
I’ve added a comparison of active listings, new listings, and closings to the same month in 2019 (for markets with available data). This gives us a sense of the current low level of sales and inventory, and also shows some significant regional differences.
The big stories for December were that existing home sales were at a new cycle low on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR), and new listings were up YoY for the 3rd consecutive month!
This table shows the YoY change in new listings since early 2023 for the sample I track. The YoY increase in December was due to a combination of new listings collapsing in the 2nd half of 2022, and new listings holding up more than normal seasonally this year (but still historically very low).
This is the slow season for new listings, but it is likely new listings will be up solidly YoY in 2024.
Active Inventory in December
Here is a summary of active listings for these housing markets in December.
Inventory for these markets were down 3.2% YoY in November and were down 2.2% YoY in December. Inventory will likely be up YoY in January.
Notes for all tables:
- New additions to table in BOLD.
- Northwest (Seattle), Jacksonville Source: Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS®
- Totals do not include Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis (included in state totals)
- Comparison to 2019 ONLY includes local markets with available 2019 data!
New Listings in December
And here is a table for new listings in December (some areas don’t report new listings). For these areas, new listings were up 1.9% YoY.
Last month, new listings in these markets were up 4.8% YoY.
This is the weakest period of the year for new listings. We will need to see if the trend of YoY increases in new listings continues in the Spring.
New listings in almost all of these areas are down compared to December 2019 activity.
Closed Sales in December
And a table of December sales.
In December, sales in these markets were down 8.0%. In November, these same markets were down 7.6% YoY Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).
Sales in almost all of these markets are down sharply compared to December 2019.
Note that closed sales in December were mostly for contracts signed in October and November. Mortgage rates, according to the Freddie Mac PMMS, averaged around 7.6% in October and 7.4% in November.
January sales will be mostly for contracts signed in November and December and mortgage rates declined to an average of 6.8% in December. My early expectation is we will see a slight increase of sales in January on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR) compared to December. There was one more working day in January 2024 compared to January 2023, so seasonally adjusted sales will be lower than the NSA data suggests.
This graph shows existing home sales by month for 2022 and 2023. Existing home sales were down year-over-year every month in 2024.
It is possible sales will be up year-over-year in January since sales were reported at 4.00 million SAAR in January 2023. The comparison will be more difficult in February.