Forecast for New and Existing Home Sales (September 2018)

• Zillow expects September existing home sales to fall 0.2 percent from August, to 5.33 million units at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR).
• New home sales should rise 1.4 percent from August, to 638,000 units (SAAR).

Existing home sales have been on a steady downward slide since March 2018, although the pace of the decline has moderated in recent months as inventory begins to perk up nationwide. Major storms that hit the Southeast in September – including hurricanes Florence and Michael – provided an additional headwind, particularly for new construction since the Southeast plays an outsized role in home building relative to its population.

We expect September existing home sales to fall 0.2 percent from August, to 5.33 million units at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR). That’s down 0.8 percent from a year earlier, and near the very bottom end of the range where existing home sales have fluctuated for the past two years. The median price of existing homes sold in September should rise 0.3 percent from August to $258,900.

The National Association of Realtors will report existing home sales on Friday, Oct. 19th.

New home sales also have trended downward since the spring, although not as sharply as existing home sales. We expect that September new home sales increased 1.4 percent from August to 638,000 units (SAAR), although this does not fully account for potential headwinds related to the storms in the Southeast. Our forecast would put existing home sales essentially unchanged over the past year, the first time the annual percent change in new home sales converged to zero in more than a year. The median price of new homes sold in September should rise 1.6 percent from August to $330,300.

The U.S. Census Bureau will report new home sales on Wednesday, Oct. 24th.