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Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in May for the third straight month as rising mortgage rates and record-high prices discouraged many prospective homebuyers during what’s traditionally the housing market’s busiest period of the year.
Existing home sales fell 0.7% last month from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million, the National Association of Realtors said Friday.
Sales also fell 2.8% compared with May last year. The latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.07 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.
“I thought that we would actually see a recovery this spring—we are not seeing it,” said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.
Despite the pullback in sales, home prices climbed compared with a year earlier for the 11th month in a row. The national median sales price rose 5.8% from a year earlier to $419,300, an all-time high on records going back to 1999. It’s also up 51% from five years ago.
As recently reported by Daily Report, residential sales also decreased in the Capital Region last month.
Following national trends, local home prices also rose last month, albeit at a slower pace than the national average. The Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors reported that the local median sales price for homes increased 1.2% from a year ago to $260,000 in May.
