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Ever since the pandemic-era housing demand surge fizzled out, mortgage rates spiked, and switching costs got out of whack , U.S. existing-home sales have been stuck at historically low levels. That’s been true in relatively more resilient housing markets across pockets of the Northeast and Midwest over the past few years, and it has also been the case in relatively softer housing markets across the Sun Belt that have been experiencing a more pronounced cyclical cooling.
Every month, you’ll see media reports about U.S. existing-home sales “rising” or “falling,” based on modest upticks or downticks in the headline seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of U.S. existing-home sales published by the National Association of Realtors. However, when you peel back the onion and look at the unadjusted monthly figures, accounting for normal seasonal patterns, the reality is that U.S. existing-home sales haven’t really budged much. In fact, this September reading published this week officially marks four straight years of “historically low” resale turnover.
Ever since mid-2022, U.S. resale transactions have largely been bouncing along the “Ds of Housing” transaction floor: Existing home sales that still occur out of necessity due to life events such as death, divorce, disability, and other circumstances that force households to move.
Below is ResiClub ’s Resale Turnover Index. It adjusts for population change (in this case, using owner-occupied households) to allow for a more apples-to-apples comparison across decades. We’re now at four straight years in the bottom 25th percentile for resale turnover, or what ResiClub calls “historically low.”
Keep in mind that the figures above refer to U.S. existing-home sales and existing-home turnover. U.S. new-home sales tell a different story: while new home sales are down from their Pandemic Housing Boom peaks, they’re still roughly on par with pre-pandemic levels in 2018–2019. That resilience has come at a cost, though. To prevent an even steeper pullback, homebuilders, especially in Sun Belt markets like Florida and Texas, have made deeper cuts to net effective home prices, using levers such as mortgage rate buydowns, cash back at closing, and outright price reductions over the past few years. At the expense of their margins, of course.
In local housing markets where active inventory has spiked and existing home sales are currently pressing below that “Ds of Housing” resale transaction floor, some existing-home sellers will have to adjust if they want to sell. Heading into the seasonally soft window, we’re already seeing that in pockets of the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Florida, and Colorado.
