Ten-X has released its latest Residential Real Estate Nowcast, indicating recent existing home sales to be increasing within the market to begin 2017, the company announced. The report indicates a slight year-over-year increase in January existing home sales.
According to the Nowcast, January sales will fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.32 and 5.67 million, with a targeted number of 5.49 million – the same number of homes sold in December of 2016, and an increase of 0.03 million from the year ago level.
“The good news is that it looks like 2017 is getting off to a slightly better start than 2016 did, and existing home sales are staying at a healthy level,” Ten-X Executive Vice President Rick Sharga said in a press release. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently reported that December existing home sales declined slightly to a seasonally adjusted rate (SAAR) of 5.49 million units, confirming the downtick the Ten-X Nowcast previously indicated. Although this marks a 2.8 percent decline from the upwardly revised 5.65 million November estimate, December sales were up 0.7 percent from a year ago.
NAR also reported that home sales finished 2016 with 5.45 million sales, gaining on the 5.25 million in 2015 and reaching their highest level since 2006.
NAR recently reported a 4 percent year-over-year increase in median existing home prices to $232,200 in December. This increase marked the 58th consecutive month of annual gains and confirmed the Nowcast prediction made in December.
The January Nowcast predicts that median existing-home sales will continue to make annual strides in January, falling between $221,272 and $244,564, with a target price point of $232,918, up 0.3 percent from December and up 8.9 percent from last year’s NAR figure.
“As we predicted, U.S. home sales bounced around at a high level throughout 2016. Homebuyer demand remained elevated throughout the year driven by a healthy labor market, low mortgage rates, low unemployment and rising wages,” Ten-X Chief Economist Peter Muoio said. “Though a historically low inventory of homes has dampened sales growth and fueled a surge in prices, the housing market continues to benefit from healthy underlying demand in the face of rising mortgage rates.”