August 22, 2024
Existing home prices went up … for the 13th straight month And here’s the kicker – it appears like the increased prices didn’t matter because home sales also went up.
That’s according to the July existing home sales report from the National Association of Realtors. So what does an existing home cost in your region?
I’m going to tell in a second but first – why did home sales go up in July after four months of sales going down?
According to the report – it’s because mortgage rates started coming down. I reported in this video at the beginning of August mortgage rates started trending down and that continues even today. Just this week we saw the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 6.46% a number we haven’t seen since early 2023. Now – that’s certainly not bargain basement low, but it’s much lower mortgage rate than we’ve been seeing. And that’s one of the main reasons why the NAR says people want to snag up available homes on the market. Total existing home sales for single family homes, townhomes, condos and co ups increased in July 1.3% from June. But that’s still down 2.5% from the number of existing homes sold in July of 2023.
Now to how much people were paying. The report found in July the nationwide average price for all housing existing home types was $422,600. That’s up 4.2% from last year. But if you break it down by region you can see how much people are really paying.
The most expensive existing homes were in the West – where the median price was $629,500 that’s up 3.4% from July of 2023.
The second most expensive existing homes were in the Northeast where the median price was $505,100 that’s up 8.3% from last year.
The third most expensive existing homes were in the South where the median price was $372,500, up 2.3% from last year.
And the least expensive existing homes were in the Midwest where the median price was $321,300 up 4.5% from July of 2023.
