WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. home resales rose to their highest level in a year in February amid improving supply, a trend that, combined with falling housing rates, could support activity during the spring.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Thursday a 9.5% jump in resales last month, to 4.38 million annualized, the highest level since February 2023.
Economists polled by Reuters on average forecast a drop in home resales to 3.94 million, from 4.00 million in January.
Housing inventories jumped 5.9% to 1.07 million units last month. This represents an increase of 10.3% over one year.
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“The additional supply of housing helps meet market demand,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR.
Supply is expected to improve further as the U.S. government reported Tuesday that construction of single-family homes reached a two-year high in February, while the total number of completed housing units rose to a level seen for the last time in January 2007.
The 30-year real estate borrowing rate has fallen in recent weeks after flirting with the level of 7% at the end of February, according to data from the mortgage financing agency Freddie Mac.
The American Federal Reserve (Fed) left the “fed funds” rate unchanged on Wednesday, in the range of 5.25% to 5.50%, while indicating that it still expects a drop in the cost of credit of three quarters of a point. percentage by the end of the year.
However, housing resales, which represent a large part of the real estate market in the United States, fell by 3.3% in February at an annual rate.
Despite the increase in supply, housing inventory remains well below the nearly two million units available before the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the rate of February sales, it would take 2.9 months to exhaust current inventories of older homes, compared to 2.6 months a year ago.
The median price of existing homes increased 5.7% from a year earlier to $384,500 in February.
Last month, properties typically stayed on the market for 38 days, compared to 34 days a year ago.
First-time buyers represented 26% of sales, compared to 27% a year ago. This share is well below the 40% that economists and real estate agents say is necessary to speak of a robust real estate market.
Cash sales represented 33% of transactions, compared to 28% a year ago. Hardship sales, including foreclosures, accounted for 3% of transactions, virtually unchanged from last year.
(Report by Lucia Mutikani; French version by Claude Chendjou, edited by Kate Entringer)
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