3.2 Percent in May.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cMore Americans are on the move, with home sales rising to the highest level since December. This is great news for the housing market and the economy,\u201d said NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun. \u201cImproving affordability is helping drive this momentum. Even with mortgage rates ticking up compared to earlier in the year, they remain lower than a year ago and are essentially at the long-term historical average. Income gains are also outpacing home price growth by a small margin in most parts of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Affordability Nonsense<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new record-high May home price reflects solid fundamentals for homeowners and ongoing supply constraints,\u201d Yun said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So we have record-high prices and rising interest rates and Yun yaps about improving affordability.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s what Yun\u2019s measure says<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Housing Affordability Index registered at 105.6, up from 97.5 a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Existing-Home Sales Month-Over-Month<\/p>\n
![\"Existing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pic3a5c1dc2b5d76e66b68248268179d7e7.jpg\" "\\"Existing")
<\/p>\n
Changes have been essentially trendless for years.<\/p>\n
Key March 2026 Statistics
\n Month-Over-Month: 3.2% increase in existing-home sales month-over-month.
\nSales Year-Over-Year: 3.2% increase in existing-home sales year-over-year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.17 million.
\nInventory Units: 1.55 million units: Total housing inventory, up 3.3% from April and up 0.6% from May 2025.
\nInventory Supply: 4.5-month supply of unsold inventory, no change from last month and down slightly from 4.6 months one year ago.
\nMedian existing-home price:$429,300: Median existing-home price for all housing types.
\n1.3% increase from one year ago ($423,700)\u2014the 35th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases.
\nMarket Time: 29 days median time on market for properties, down from 32 days last month, up from 27 days in May 2025<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Existing-Home Sales Year-Over-Year<\/p>\n
![\"Existing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pic5acf03f0e052f99e5bf1adf318e336b9.jpg\" "\\"Existing")
<\/p>\n
Existing Home Sales Supply<\/p>\n
![\"Existing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pic83a2fe2e5ed68da4ae5a94f884a245cb.jpg\" "\\"Existing")
<\/p>\n
The NAR does not seasonally adjust much of its data as evidenced by the above chart.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, we can see a rising supply over time. But rising supply has not helped sales.<\/p>\n
Existing-Home Sales vs Mortgage Rates <\/p>\n
![\"Existing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pic32392e269a2bea770ea6e25397f06dd1.jpg\" "\\"Existing")
<\/p>\n
There are sometimes jumps in sales when rates drop. However, there has not been any lasting traction.<\/p>\n
Sales have basically gone nowhere, even as rates fell from 7.62 percent to 6.05 percent.<\/p>\n
But rates have risen again. The current Mortgage News Daily rate is 6.68 percent.<\/p>\n
MND is more accurate than the Freddie Mac data in my chart because it includes points and fees. I use Freddie Mac data because I have a download from the St. Louis Fed.<\/p>\n
The only conclusion is that home prices are still too high, mortgage rates are too high, or both.<\/p>\n
Synopsis
\nReal Income falling
\nHome prices rising
\nMortgage rates rising
\nYun claims affordability is improving
\nRelated Posts <\/p>\n
May 26, 2026:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Auto delinquencies are at a new record and credit cards are near record high.<\/p>\n
May 28, 2026:\u00a0<\/p>\n
57% of consumers say high prices are eroding their personal finances.<\/p>\n
May 28, 2026:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Year-over-year PCE inflation jumped to 3.8 percent. The Fed wants 2.0 percent.<\/p>\n
Original Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s have a fact check on the NAR\u2019s improving affordability claims. The National Association of Realtors reports Rise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-470405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Existing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/piccd8c0a2063aa239728d3b9adb7fe8bf8.jpg\" "\\"Existing")
<\/p>\n