HOME SALES FALL AS INVENTORY DRIES UP, PRICES CLIMB

Sales of existing homes slipped 2.7 percent in April compared to March, the third consecutive month of sliding sales, the National Association of Realtors (NRA) reported.
A continuing lack of available homes has pushed up prices. That increase, combined with rising mortgage interest rates, has left fewer potential buyers able to qualify for loans.
April’s median U.S. home price was $341,600, up 19.1 percent year over year, according to the NRA, while the number of homes up for sale was 20 percent lower than a year earlier.
Eighty-eight percent of homes sold in April were snapped up in less than a month; a quarter of buyers paid cash, the NRA noted.
Half of all homes sold in April through online brokerage Redfin fetched more than the original asking price; a year ago, the proportion was only 25 percent, the company said.
“Even if demand comes down, supply is the issue,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told The New York Times. “That’s going to limit sales.”  
“First-time buyers in particular are having trouble securing that first home,” Lawrence Yun, NRA’s chief economist, said in comments quoted by the NYT.
TREND FORECAST: The housing market will stay hot as long as interest rates stay low. However, it will not experience the boom that began when the COVID War was launched in 2020 and people left big cities for suburban and ex-urban areas.