Home Sales disappoints at the end of April

Weekly pending home sales disappointed in the last week of April, by 10% less than the same week in 2024.

To be specific, the sale of single -family homes was 8% less than the same week last year, and the sale of Condo came in 19% less. Nationally, weekly housing sale only saw a small rebound after the Easter holidays of two weeks ago.

It is not only in the number of transactions. Prices also looked soft last week. The median prize of the weekly pending sale arrived under the same week last year.

That is the first negative reading on an annual basis in almost two years. This is a week of negative house prices National.

A week is not a trend – it can return next week – but it is remarkable that this is the first negative reading after the annual rate of the house price change, is delayed throughout the year.

During the week the mortgage interest rate is lower, so the typical mortgage payment for a home buyer is now almost 6% cheaper than for buyers a year ago. The average 30-year-old mortgage with a fixed interest rate is still almost 7%, so there is very little incentive for potential buyers sitting on the fence.

In the meantime, the non -sold new lists in the northeast has risen this week.

Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all had important rebounds in new offers after the Easter holidays. These states are where inventory and weekly new mentions have remained very limited. In some cases, the available inventory of unsold houses is still hardly above the shortage level of the Pandemic Crisis.

So a small growth of the seller volume in these states is welcome. Stay informed to see if that trend is going on.

Weekly pending housing sales

We follow every house that takes on an offer and goes a contract every week throughout the country. Houses usually last 30 to 40 days contract to close the sale. Not every house will close in contract, but this number is a very good proxy for May home sales, which will be in the headlines in a few months.

And … the sale of houses was clearly slow at the end of April.

This week we only had 71,000 new contracts for single -family homes. That has risen 4.6% in the last week, including the Easter holidays. But it came in 8.7% less than the same week in 2024.

In this graph you can see that this year’s Purple Line has arrived under 2024 for a few weeks. Two weeks ago the late Easter holiday included, so that is no surprise. But this week he didn’t return as much as I expected.

I think the house sales will be slightly better next week than 2024. Last year was rough at the moment. The mortgage interest jumped to 7.5%. From next week, the comparisons on an annual basis will be very simple. We have also not yet reached the seasonal peak of buying activities. With the late Easter, that peak is probably only later in May 2025. So we should see a few weeks of increasing transaction citizens to the Holiday Day holiday when the market pauses again.

The collection meals for home sales; April started with the growth of housing sales over 2024, but ended with less.

May it usually have to see more home sales than last year. If we only see 72,000 weekly pending home sales next week, that would be a bearish signal – and you can be sure that I will emphasize it next Monday. Stay informed.

House prices

As I said, the soft data not only entered transaction volume, but also in prices. The median price of the new hanging home sales this week was $ 395,000.

That fell by 1% for the week, and house prices this week were lower than the same week in 2024.

In recent years the story is that the sale of houses is low, but house prices are still on an annual basis. House prices continued to climb, even when demand weakened to very low levels in recent years.

Why did house prices continue to rise? Well, the range of houses to buy was still quite limited. There were very few new offers every week and still limited levels of unsold inventory national.

Now, after three years of rising inventory, we are finally out of that shortage – but the question has not been recovered. So we are now at a point where the rising range is large enough to influence prices.

This graph of the weekly hanging prices for home sales is very useful. You can see how, even in the light of the slow sale, the blue line for 2024 prices above 2023 remained raised. The prices are higher.

And again, this year the Purple Line for 2025 is throughout the year throughout the year last year. But this most recent lecture, at the end of April, dropped below last year. Last year the median prize of single -family homes was new in treatment $ 399,000. This year it is $ 395,000.

As I have said before, one week is not a trend. The prices will probably return next week, but every negative reading on an annual basis in house prices is very unusual. You can see the green line from 2022, when the market braked – the prices that have been adjusted that year. So a week is not a trend, but there is nothing positive in this lecture.

We can also get signals with leading indicators for future sale. The median catalog price and the price of the new entries both checked for the week and run around 2-3%last year.

This combination tells us that we strive for a maximum of zero percent house price change throughout the country. The big one I pay attention to in house prices is a big shock. For example, the mortgage interest rates were with the rate announcements a month ago, and if that happens again, house prices are very vulnerable.

Inventory

The sale of living is a decrease, so the inventory grew by 2% this week – a solid rebound after the Easter holidays.

Although there are still not many sellers in most of the country, slow sales mean that inventory uninsured.

As I said, the range of houses on the market is finally enough to influence prices. In fact, there are now more houses on the market than at any time since the pandemic.

We know that the inventory has been over the Sunbelt, but I am now looking at the northeast to see if that part of the country finally catches up some stock. Moreover, we have a whole summer of stock growth. So this story is not over.

See the purple line here for the 2025 inventory curve. 744,000 single -family homes were not sold on the market throughout the country. That is 33% more than last year. It is more than the peak of 2024, which only came in October. It is more than April 2020, when the stock through the Pandemic demand tree started to fall quickly every month.

In this vision it is very easy to see how we end 2025 with an end to the Pandemic shortage that we have had to deal with for five years. Time for a new era and new assumptions about the housing market.

New offers

Last week 78,000 new lists were not sold for single -family homes throughout the country. That is 10% more than a year ago. So, inventory is building. That was a rebound of 12% after the Easter holidays.

But in fact they are actually fewer new offers than I expected. I was looking for 80,000 single -family homes to become new, and we arrived at 78,000. I will again look for 80,000 in the details of the coming week. I think we could see that 80k threshold for the first time in next week’s data.

New entries came back by 12%, but the turnover only recovered by 5%. And new offers can continue to accelerate. One thing to view in the details of the new list is whether the slow sale also places a ceiling on new offers. If I don’t buy a house, I don’t sell my current one.

So if new offers hit a cap and withdraw to the levels of recent years, that is a bearish signal. That would not be healthy for housing.

In this graph, the purple line of this year’s weekly new entries had approached the old normal levels at the top of the graph. The end of April was not up to 80,000 and you can see that the purple line is to the set at the bottom of the graph. Next week let’s see if we get some growth.

It is the fact that the seller’s volume has been compiled that there is now a dramatically less immediate sale than in recent years. Only 15,000 new offers immediately after reaching the market at the end of April.

All in all, there were only 1% or so more sellers than last year. This can be a signal from both buyers and sellers who get shivers. Again, if that continues, that would be an unhealthy sign for housing.

Price reductions

Today, let’s pack to the leading indicators. As the inventory grew and transactions are disappointed, it is not surprising that we measured a bit of a rise in price reductions at the end of April.

The percentage of houses on the market with price reductions increased by 60 basic points to 36.5% of the market. You can see that the 2025 line will remain raised here compared to any recent year. This shows us considerably weaker pressure on the house price than we have had since 2022.

Price reductions can change course when demand starts. If the mortgage interest rate would fall as they did in September last year, we would see buyers coming from the fence, offer offers on houses, and we would see the increase in question flattened this curve – as in the Blue Line of 2024 later last year. There is no sign that is happening now. This is another way to know that the range of unsold houses is much great to influence the prices.

The collection meals on price reductions is that it is simply a different point of view that reinforces today’s message. Home Sales disappointed at the end of April. The turnover is a decrease and prices are falling. Consumers are waiting for the circumstances to improve – and they don’t have that.

That is all the data we have time for. This market is changing quickly. If you have to be on top, I strongly advise you to participate with us Housing And Altos Research.