February Sales of Existing Homes Remain at Multi-month Low

The consensus estimate called for sales to reach 4.58 million, according to a survey of economists polled by MarketWatch.

Housing inventory rose 6.4% in February, to 2 million homes, which is equal to a supply of 5.2 months, higher than the 4.9-month supply in January. Unsold inventory is up 5.3% compared with February 2013, when there was a supply of 4.6 months.

According to the NAR, the national median existing home price in January was $189,000, or up 9.1% compared with February 2013.

NAR’s chief economist said:

We had ongoing unusual weather disruptions across much of the country last month, with the continuing frictions of constrained inventory, restrictive mortgage lending standards and housing affordability less favorable than a year ago. Some transactions are simply being delayed, so there should be some improvement in the months ahead. With an expected pickup in job creation, home sales should trend up modestly over the course of the year.

Sales of single-family homes slipped 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.04 million, down from 4.05 million in January and 6.9% below sales in February a year ago. Sales of multifamily homes fell 1.8% month-over-month, to an annual rate of 560,000.

Foreclosed and short sales accounted for 16% of February sales. Foreclosures sold at an average 16% discount to the February median price, while short sales sold at a discount of 11%.

Existing, nondistressed homes were on the market for an average of 61 days, while foreclosed homes were on the market for an average of 60 days and short sales took a median of 94 days to sell.

The good news from the NAR’s report is that housing inventory continues to rise year-over-year, even though it is still low by historical standards.