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October 2017 Headline Existing Home Growth Improves

By Kurt Osterberg · On November 21, 2017

The headline existing home sales growth improved with the authors saying “While the housing market gained a little more momentum last month, sales are still below year ago levels because low inventory is limiting choices for prospective buyers and keeping price growth elevated.”. Our analysis of the unadjusted data agrees with the headline data.

Analyst Opinion of Existing Home Sales

The rolling averages have been slowing in 2017 – but they marginally accelerated this month. Still the rolling averages remain in contraction.

Econintersect Analysis

Unadjusted sales rate of growth accelerated 7.9 % month-over-month, up 2.9 % year-over-year – sales growth rate trend accelerated using the 3 month moving average but remains in contraction.

Unadjusted price rate of growth accelerated 0.2 % month-over-month, up 4.6 % year-over-year – price growth rate trend marginally decelerated using the 3 month moving average.

The homes for sale inventory marginally declined this month, remains historically low for Octobers, and is down 10.4 % from inventory levels one year ago).

NAR reported:

Sales up 2.0 % month-over-month, down 0.9 % year-over-year.

Prices up 5.5 % year-over-year

The market expected annualized sales volumes of 5.320 M to 5.550 M (consensus 5.425 million) vs the 5.48 million reported.