by Calculated Risk on 2/19/2021 10:18:00 AM

From the NAR: Existing-Home Sales Tick Up 0.6% in January

Total existing-home sales, completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 0.6% from December to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.69 million in January. Sales in total climbed year-over-year, up 23.7% from a year ago (5.41 million in January 2020).

Total housing inventory at the end of January amounted to 1.04 million units, down 1.9% from December and down 25.7% from one year ago (1.40 million). Unsold inventory sits at a 1.9-month supply at the current sales pace, equal to December's supply and down from the 3.1-month amount recorded in January 2020. NAR first began tracking the single-family home supply in 1982.
emphasis added

Note: December was revised down from 6.76 million to 6.65 million SAAR.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows existing home sales, on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis since 1993.

Sales in January (6.69 million SAAR) were up 0.6% from last month, and were 23.7% above the January 2020 sales rate.

The second graph shows nationwide inventory for existing homes.

According to the NAR, inventory decreased to 1.04 million in January from 1.06 million in December.   Headline inventory is not seasonally adjusted, and inventory usually decreases to the seasonal lows in December and January, and peaks in mid-to-late summer.

The last graph shows the year-over-year (YoY) change in reported existing home inventory and months-of-supply. Since inventory is not seasonally adjusted, it really helps to look at the YoY change. Note: Months-of-supply is based on the seasonally adjusted sales and not seasonally adjusted inventory.

Inventory was down 25.7% year-over-year in January compared to January 2020.

Months of supply was unchanged at 1.9 months in January (tied for all time low).

This was above the consensus forecast. I'll have more later.