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REAL ESTATE
Home Sales Finally Turn Corner
Home prices set another record high
The housing market suffered from sluggish sales again in October 2024, but sales volumes finally are looking up. And home prices remain near record highs, the National Association of Realtors says.
The median home-sale price dropped slightly from June’s all-time high but still marked the highest median on record for the month of October, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said. Meanwhile, sales of existing homes rose 2.9 percent from a year ago, the first annual rise in home sales since the depths of the pandemic.
“Maybe we are turning the corner,” Yun told reporters Nov. 21. “It was the first year-over-year gain in home sales in more than three years.”
High mortgage rates had contributed to the slow sales figures, but that picture has been shifting. Even before the Federal Reserve announced a half-point rate cut on Sept. 18, mortgage rates had gone all the way from 8.01 percent in October 2023 to 6.20 percent as of Sept. 18, according to Bankrate’s most recent . However, mortgage rates rose after the Fed meeting, climbing to 7.02 percent as of Nov. 20.
With home prices historically high, remain daunting for homebuyers. Lower mortgage rates…
