– Existing home sales in the US rose to 4.97 million annualized units in April 2013 from March’s revised 4.94 million sales (initially reported as 4.92 million). Market expectations had been for sales of 4.99 million annualized units.
– The inventory of homes available for sale jumped by 11.9% to a seven-month high of 2.16 million units. The month’s supply of unsold homes rose to 5.2 from 4.7 in the previous month, but this is still well below the historical average of 6.4 months and indicative of tight supply conditions in the resale market.
– The median price of existing homes increased to 11.0% on a year-over-year basis as the share of distressed property sales declined from a year ago.
An annualized 4.97 million existing homes were sold in the US in April 2013, which was a 0.6% increase from the revised 4.94 million annualized units sold in March (initially reported as 4.92 million). This represented the highest level of existing home sales since November 2009 when the market spiked in response to the homebuyers’ tax credit; however, it was slightly less than the 4.99 million sales expected by the market. The modest pickup in resale activity in April reflected a 1.2% increase in sales of single-family homes (to 4.38 million annualized units) in the month that more than offset the 3.3% decline in condo and condo sales (to 0.59 million). Existing home sales rose in the South (2.0%), West (1.7%), and Northeast (1.6%), while activity moderated in the Midwest (-3.4%).
The total number of existing homes available for sale jumped 11.9% to a seven-month high of 2.16 million units in April. At the current pace of sales, it would take 5.2 months to clear this inventory of unsold homes, which is up from 4.7 in the previous month but still well below the historical average of 6.4 months and indicative of tight supply conditions in the resale market. Against lean inventories and with the share of distressed sales shrinking (down to 18% of total sales in April 2013 from 21% in March and 28% in April 2012), house prices continue their upward trend. The US$192,800 median sales price represented an 11.0% increase over the year-ago level and marked the fourteenth consecutive month of annual price increases.
Existing home sales have increased in seven consecutive quarters through the first quarter of 2013, and the modest increase in resale activity to kickoff second quarter reported today pointed to that streak extending to eight. The steady increase in demand for housing is keeping inventories of existing homes lean and is spurring on a pickup in homebuilding activity from recessionary lows. We anticipate that these improving trends in the housing market will continue in the near term, which would be consistent with the residential investment component of real GDP providing a key support for the ongoing expansion of the overall economy during the coming year.
RBC