Economy: Existing Home Sales During April 2022

The Existing Home Sales report for April 2022 was released by The National Association of Realtors® (NAR®) this morning:

Predicted: 5,600,000
Actual: 5,610,000

Change from Previous Month: -2.435% (-140,000 homes)
Change from One Year Previous: -5.872% (-350,000 homes)

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Inventory: 1,030,000 (2.2 months supply; -4.3% year-on-year.)

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The yellow-highlighted, "actual" figure above represents the preliminary, seasonally adjusted annualized sales count of existing homes, co-ops and condominiums for the indicated month. The "predicted" figure is what economists were expecting, while the "actual" is the true or real figure.

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Median Price for A Used Home During April 2022: $391,200

Change from One Year Previous: +14.822% (+$50,500)

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Average Price for A Used Home During April 2022: $397,600

Change from One Year Previous: +9.2% (+$33,500)

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Click here for historical prices and a chart.

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From Today's Report:

"...Higher home prices and sharply higher mortgage rates have reduced buyer activity,' said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. 'It looks like more declines are imminent in the upcoming months, and we'll likely return to the pre-pandemic home sales activity after the remarkable surge over the past two years.'

'Housing supply has started to improve, albeit at an extremely sluggish pace,' said Yun.

He also noted the rare state of the current marketplace.

'The market is quite unusual as sales are coming down, but listed homes are still selling swiftly, and home prices are much higher than a year ago,' said Yun.

'Moreover, an increasing number of buyers with short tenure expectations could opt for 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages , thereby assuring fixed payments over five years because of the rate reset,' he added. 'The cash buyers, not impacted by mortgage rate changes, remain elevated.'

Properties typically remained on the market for 17 days in April, equal to both the number of days in March 2022 and in April 2021. Eighty-eight percent of homes sold in April 2022 were on the market for less than a month.

First-time buyers were responsible for 28% of sales in April, down from 30% in March and from 31% in April 2021.

All-cash sales accounted for 26% of transactions in April, down from 28% in March and up from the 25% recorded in April 2021.

Distressed sales -- foreclosures and short sales -- represented less than 1% of sales in April, equal to the percentage seen in March and down from 2% in April 2021.

According to Freddie Mac, the average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage was 4.98% in April, up from 4.17% in March. The average commitment rate across all of 2021 was 2.96%.

Realtor.com®'s Market Trends Report in April shows that the largest year-over-year median list price growth occurred in Miami (+38.3%), Las Vegas (+32.6%), and Orlando (+30.7%). Austin reported the highest growth in the share of homes that had their prices reduced compared to last year (+6.8 percentage points), followed by Las Vegas (+5.3 percentage points) and Sacramento (+4.7 percentage points)..."