Pending home sales dropped 0.7 percent in July, the seventh straight month of annual decline, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Contract signings are down 2.3 percent compared with July 2017.
“The reason sales are falling off last year’s pace is that multiple years of inadequate supply in markets with strong job growth have finally driven up home prices to a point where an increasing number of prospective buyers are unable to afford it,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a statement.
Signs of an increase in inventory, particularly in the West, will likely help cool the surging price growth and spur an uptick in pending sales over the next year, Yun added.
Regionally, pending home sales grew 1.0 percent in the Northeast and 0.3 percent in the Midwest; however, both regions were below July 2017 sales numbers by 2.3 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
Pending sales declined 1.7 percent in the South in July, falling 0.9 percent below the same period last year. The West saw a decrease of 0.9 percent in July, 5.8 percent below July 2017 sales.
