US Home Resales Edge Up Marginally in April

(MENAFN) Sales of previously owned homes in the United States edged up only marginally in April, pulling back from a nine-month low but offering little relief for a housing market struggling to gain traction as the critical spring selling season got underway.

Existing-home sales climbed 0.2% to 4.02 million units, according to data published Monday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) — landing slightly short of analyst expectations and underscoring the fragile state of the sector.

The near-stagnant reading reflects a market still caught in a vice grip of persistently elevated mortgage rates, record-high asking prices, and deepening affordability pressures that continue to push would-be buyers to the sidelines.

The median resale price for existing homes climbed 0.9% year-over-year to $417,700 in April — the highest ever recorded for that month.

On the supply side, available inventory rose to 1.47 million units, the most for any April since 2019. Yet that figure remains well short of pre-pandemic benchmarks, a gap NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun was direct in highlighting.

"Even though it's the highest inventory post-Covid, we are not close to the pre-Covid April inventory of 1.83 million," Lawrence Yun said.

Regionally, sales posted gains in the Midwest and South, while the West bucked the trend — contract closings there slid to a three-month low.

First-time buyers represented 33% of all transactions, a slight dip compared to the same period a year ago, reflecting the mounting barriers facing new entrants to the market.

The NAR's affordability index, which measures whether a median-income household can qualify for a mortgage on a mid-priced home, has recovered modestly from last year's historic lows — but has retreated over the past two consecutive months, a trend analysts say warrants close monitoring heading into the summer.

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