Existing home sales increased 5.1% in March to an annual rate of 5,330,000, but the increase was not enough to make up for the 7.3% drop in February. In addition, sales are up just 1.5% from this time last year, suggesting that low inventory of homes for sale continues to dampen both real estate agents’ and homebuyers’ ability to find homes in the face of solid economic growth. If we discount the large drop in November 2015 home sales because of new disclosure rules introduced last year, March’s year-over-year increase was the smallest annual increase since September 2014.
Low inventory has also dampened the number of existing sales per real estate sector employee. Despite job growth in the real estate services sector remaining higher than the pace of national job growth in March, at around 2.3%, the number of existing homes sales per employee in March stood at 3.5. This is up slightly from the previous month but flat from a year earlier. While the number of sales per real estate employee hovers near post-recession highs, March’s number of 3.5 remains well below pre-recession peaks of approximately 5 sales per employee per month.
Existing Home Sales Highlights:
- Existing home sales in December were up 1.5% year-over-year, and 5.1% month-over-month.
- Annual gains in existing home sales were the smallest since September 2014.
- The number of real estate jobs per home sale is up slightly from February, but still well below pre-recession highs.