Sales of existing homes dropped 2.5 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.46 million, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The decline follows two straight months of gains in the market and brings sales to 1.4 percent below April 2017 rates.
“The root cause of the underperforming sales activity in much of the country so far this year continues to be the utter lack of available listings on the market to meet the strong demand for buying a home,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a statement.
The median price for all housing types sold in April was $257,900, an increase of 5.3 percent compared with last year’s median of $245,000.
The total existing housing inventory increased 9.8 percent in April to 1.80 million, but is 6.3 percent blow the same period last year.
Regionally, existing home sales in the Northeast dropped 4.4 percent, and remained unchanged in the Midwest; sales in the South fell 2.9 percent and declined 3.3 percent in the West.
