September Existing Home Sales: Torrid Growth

• September existing home sales rose to 6.54 million (SAAR), up 9.4% from August and 20.9% from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.
• The median existing-home price in September was $311,800, up 14.8% from September 2019.
• Inventory fell 1.3% from August and 19.2% year-over-year.

The impressive run for home sales continued into September, as buyers stayed their course in the face of the ongoing pandemic and an unrelenting inventory shortage. Building on an already strong pace set in July and August, sales figures in September rose at their fastest annual rate since 2010, when the housing market was just beginning its slow recovery from the Great Recession. Red-hot competition for the few homes available – fueled, in part, by low mortgage rates and a wave of millennials graduating into their home-owning years – has placed remarkable upward pressure on prices, particularly for single-family homes. Annual growth of single-family home prices has risen by more in the last three months than in any previously recorded period dating back to 1969. This torrid growth in sales may ultimately be done in by an inventory crunch that's only getting worse -- its hard to keep setting sales records when there's so little for sale -- forcing a slowdown in transactions in the coming months. But with demand for housing as high as it is, it’s unlikely that a slowdown in sales will be substantial.