U.S. existing home sales fell again in September, falling for eight straight months

　　China News Agency, Washington, October 20 (Reporter Sha Hanting) The National Association of Realtors released data on the 20th local time, showing that the sales volume of existing homes in the United States in September fell by 1.5% month-on-month, which has been 8 consecutive years. month-to-month decline.

　　Data showed that existing home sales in the United States in September were 4.71 million units at an annual rate, down 23.8% from the same period last year.

The sales pace was the lowest since September 2012, barring an outlier due to the pandemic in May 2020.

　　In terms of prices, the median existing home price in September was $384,800, an increase of 8.4% year-over-year.

In terms of inventory, there were 1.25 million houses for sale at the end of September, a decrease of 2.3% month-on-month and a decrease of 0.8% year-on-year.

At the current sales pace, it would take 3.2 months to sell all homes on the market.

In a market where supply and demand are balanced, it usually takes 5 to 6 months to sell all the homes on the market.

　　Experts believe that the most important reason for the continuous decline in existing home sales is that the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes have led to higher mortgage rates, thereby reducing the purchasing power of home buyers.

Meanwhile, a lack of inventory has pushed up prices despite fewer homebuyers.

　　The average interest rate on 30-year fixed mortgages climbed to 6.94% from 6.92% last week, the highest since April 2002, according to data from Freddie Mac, a US housing finance agency, on the 20th. The same period last year was only 3.09%.

　　The survey data released by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently showed that as mortgage interest rates continued to climb, the confidence index of US home builders fell again in October, which was the 10th consecutive month of decline for the indicator.

　　According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, according to the current situation, it is expected that the house prices in about half of the United States will fall next year, especially in the areas where house prices have risen sharply in recent years. , such as California, etc.

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