Yahoo Finance

Existing home sales fall in February

Amanda Fung · Editor
Fri, March 18, 2022, 10:00 AM · 4 min read

Homebuying activity faded in February. ... Existing home sales declined 7.2% to a seasonally adjusted 6.02 million units in February from a month earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The number of sales was down 2.4% from the same month a year ago. January home sales figures were revised slightly down to 6.49 million from 6.5 million. The results came in much higher than analysts' expectations of a 6.2% month-over-month decline to 6.1 million units, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates.

“The latest decline is of larger magnitude than normal,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, noting that anything above 5% is considered a big swing.

Sales in all four regions of the U.S. fell, with the Northeast and Midwest leading the declines by recording a 11.5% and 11.3% drop, respectively. Sales fell 5.1% in the South and 4.7% in the West.

The dip in actual home sales should not have come as a surprise given the decline in pending home sales in the first month of this year and two months prior. Pending home sales, a leading indicator of the housing market, indicates when buyers first sign contracts. So the actual sale of a home usually takes place at least a month later.

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