Existing-Home Sales Disappoint In August, Median Price Drops After two straight monthly gains (better than expected and bucking the trend in new- and pending-home-sales), analysts expected existing home sales to tumble in August and they were right. Existing home sales fell 2.0% MoM in August - worse than the 1.7% drop expected (exaggerated by an upward revision in July). This drop pushed the year-over-year change in existing home sales negative for the first time since June 2020... Source: Bloomberg “Clearly the home sales are settling down but above pre-pandemic conditions,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said on a call with reporters. The SAAR dropped back, but remains just above pre-COVID levels... Source: Bloomberg Sales of million-dollar-plus homes are up 40% YoY... ...but the median sale price increase of 14.9% was lowest since January (and the median price actually dropped)... Yun said Realtors are seeing “less intensive multiple offers” for available properties. In August, there were 3.8 offers on a typical home, down from 4.5 a month earlier. All four regions in the U.S. posted sales declines last month, led by a 3% drop in the South which dominated sales as usual... Finally, we remind readers that homebuyer sentiment and homebuilder sentiment could not possibly be more divergent... Source: Bloomberg Can Jay Powell afford to upset those homebuilders? What do homeowners know? Tyler Durden Wed, 09/22/2021 - 10:07