Sales of existing homes inched up 0.6% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.69 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate is up 23.7% compared with January 2020.
Housing inventory, however, fell to a record-low of 1.04 million units, a 25.7% decline compared with January 2020. It’s the lowest inventory since NAR becan tracking single-family home supply in 1982, and represents a 1.9-month supply at the current sales pace.
“Home sales continue to ascend in the first month of the year, as buyers quickly snatched up virtually every new listing coming on the market,” stated Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Sales easily could have been even 20% higher if there had been more inventory and more choices.”
Existing home sales saw double-digit growth in every region year-over-year in January, climbing 24.3% in the Northeast, 22.7% in the Midwest, 25.1% in the South and 21.3% in the West.
The median price for existing homes increased 14.1% year-over-year to $303,900.
The full NAR report can be found here.