by Calculated Risk on 11/22/2021 10:35:00 AM

Today, in the Real Estate Newsletter: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 6.34 million in October

Excerpt:

Sales in October (6.34 million SAAR) were up 0.8% from last month, and were 5.8% below the October 2020 sales rate.

Some of the increase in sales since the beginning of the pandemic was probably related to record low mortgage rates, strong second home buying, a strong stock market and favorable demographics.

Also, the delay in the 2020 buying season pushed the seasonally adjusted number to very high levels over the winter. This means there are going to be some difficult year-over-year (YoY) comparisons in the last quarter of 2021.

This graph shows existing home sales by month for 2020 and 2021.

This was the third month this year with sales down year-over-year. This should continue through the rest of the year, since sales averaged 6.7million SAAR over the last three months of 2020.

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