National Sales Numbers Send Mixed Messages

The good news for the economy is that housing prices throughout the U.S. remained strong in May, maintaining their steady growth. The CoreLogic national home price index released earlier this week showed a 6.4% gain from the same period last year. That is similar to the growth recorded in April year over year.

The bad news: Higher home prices are affecting the pace of sales, which is slowing around the country. New home sales reached an 8 month low in June, dropping by 5.3% from May, while existing home sales fell for the 3rd straight month.

In Los Angeles, where our need for affordable housing is at a critical stage, home prices were 7.6% higher than in May 2017. The number of sales in the same period dropped by just over 2% when compared with 2017. In Manhattan, the number of home sales dropped by 34.2% year over year in May. While home prices were higher than they were a year ago (4.2%), they’ve barely moved since March. In Miami, home sales dropped 2.3% from 2017’s numbers, but sales prices were up 5%.