Existing home sales in 2021 reached highest level since 2006, despite December slowdown

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo Finance

Existing home sales in 2021 reached highest level since 2006, despite December slowdown

Amanda Fung·Editor
Thu, January 20, 2022, 10:00 AM

Home sales in the U.S. ended 2021 on a low note in December, but annual sales activity for the entire year reached its highest level since 2006.

Existing home sales fell 4.6% to a seasonally adjusted 6.18 million million units in December from a month earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). November existing home sales were revised slightly down to 6.46 million from 6.48 million. The number of sales was down 7.1% from the same month a year ago. The results were far more disappointing than analysts' expectations of a 0.5% month-over-month decrease to 6.43 million units, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates.

For the entire year, there were 6.12 million units sold in 2021, the most since 2006 and up 8.5% from the prior year when activity was fueled by pent up demand from COVID-19 lockdowns, according to the NAR. Prior to COVID, there were 5 million to 5.5 million unit sales per year. The December results could have been anticipated since pending home sales slipped in November, which is an indicator of future sales activity.

“December saw sales retreat, but the pullback was more a sign of supply constraints than an indication of a weakened demand for housing,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, also attributing the slowdown in the final month of 2021 to rising mortgage interest rates, “which can produce mixed results. Some people want to hurry and buy, others want to wait to buy. Rising rates will cut into home sales."

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Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/existing-home-sales-december-2021-150008238.html

[inthewind21]

1. And like 2008

It will fall just as hard as it rose.

[Crowman2009]

2. All those empty homes bought, and yet thousands remain homeless.

The math doesn't add up. How many are actually living in these newly purchased homes, and how many are just for shady real estate investments/money laundering.