Sales of single-family homes fell last month from July but rose from a year ago as mortgage rates kept falling.
New single-family home sales fell 4.7% in August from the prior month to an annualized rate of 716,000, according to estimates released on Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That was up 9.8% from an annualized rate of 652,000 home sales in August 2023.
The latest month-over-month decline was in contrast to a 10.3% jump in single-family home sales from June to July.
Single-family home sales fell the most from July to August in the West, falling 17.8% to an annualized rate of 152,000 in that region.
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Sales of all homes, which also included condominiums, townhomes and co-ops, slipped 2.5% from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.86 million in August, according to latest figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Year-over-year sales for August declined 4.2% from 4.03 million in August 2023.
"Home sales were disappointing again in August, but the recent development of lower mortgage rates coupled with increasing inventory is a powerful combination that will provide the environment for sales to move higher in future months," NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said.
"The home-buying process, from the initial search to getting the house keys, typically takes several months."
The interest rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to a two-year low of 6.13%, a week after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points to mark the first Fed rate cut in four years.
Price Action: Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN), one of the largest homebuilders with a market cap of $49.5 billion, slipped 1.29% to close Wednesday at $181.86.
- IShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (BATS:ITB) slipped 1.71%
- Direxion Daily Homebuilders & Supplies Bull 3X Shares (NYSE:NAIL) fell 4.94%
- AdvisorShares Gerber Kawasaki ETF (NYSE:GK) went up 0.17%
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