Asking prices fell at a record pace and pending sales increased for the seventh straight month as sellers set realistic prices and buyers responded, according to Realtor.com’s June Housing Market Trends Report.
June’s housing statistics were good for everyone. Asking prices have fallen at a record pace and days on market have finally stopped increasing.
Asking prices for homes in June fell 2.5% from the same month last year, with the national median price at $430,000. This was the largest annual decline in the history of Realtor.com data dating back to 2017, and the eighth straight month of declines. At the same time, the platform’s June housing market trends report released Wednesday showed that the median time for a home to sell was 53 days, flat year-over-year, ending a 26-month streak of homes taking longer to sell than a year ago.
This decline has led to meaningful changes in affordability for buyers. According to the report, a homebuyer who purchased a $430,000 home in June with an average mortgage rate of 6.49% and a 20% down payment would have a typical monthly payment of $2,172, about $132 less per month than a year ago, when the median price was $440,950 and the average interest rate was 6.82%.
According to the report, pending sales increased by 3.7% year-on-year, marking the seventh consecutive month of increase and the highest consecutive record from January to July 2021. At the same time, the percentage of discounted listings decreased by 1.9 percentage points to 18.8%, consistent with sellers pricing more realistically at the outset.
The number of new listings increased 2.4% year-on-year to 463,480, led by the Northeast with 12.6%. Active inventory reached 1,102,615 items, an increase of 1.9% compared to the previous year. According to the report, homes delisted, or taken off the market without being sold, fell by nearly 10% from a year ago to only about 5% of all active listings, near the lowest share since last year’s surge.
By region, list prices fell the most in the West, with a 4% year-on-year decline, followed by the South at 2.5%, and the Northeast at 1%. The Midwest was flat. At the metropolitan level, median list price per square foot decreased in 33 of the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Austin had the largest decline at 8.2%, followed by Memphis at 6% and Buffalo at 5.2%. Providence had the largest increase at 8.7%, followed by Indianapolis at 4.9% and New York at 3.4%.
Four years after the national median list price peaked at $449,000 in June 2022, prices have fallen 7.3% in the West and 3.5% in the South, but have increased 10% in the Midwest and 12.6% in the Northeast, the report said.
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