the lowest level in more than a year. <\/a><\/p>\nEven so, affordability remains a challenge for many aspiring homeowners, especially first-time buyers who don\u2019t have equity from an existing home to put toward a new home purchase. Uncertainty over the economy and job market are also keeping many would-be buyers on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
A shortage of homes for sale, especially in the more affordable end of the market, continues to weigh especially on first-time homebuyers. They accounted for 30% of homes sales last month. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.<\/p>\n
An annual survey of homebuyers by NAR showed first-time buyers accounted for an all-time low 21% of home purchases between July 2024 and June 2025, while the average age of such homebuyers rose to a record-high of 40.<\/p>\n
Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in September and October, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6.5% to 6.17%, according to Freddie Mac. Mortgage rates have mostly remained close to their October low in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Home shoppers who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates benefited from a wider selection of properties on the market last month than a year ago, although the number of homes for sale in November declined from the previous month.<\/p>\n
There were 1.43 million unsold homes at the end of last month, down 5.9% from October and up 7.5% from November last year, NAR said.<\/p>\n
The latest inventory snapshot remains well below the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
November\u2019s month-end inventory translates to a 4.2-month supply at the current sales pace. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.<\/p>\n
Yun is forecasting that existing U.S. home sales will jump 14% next year. That\u2019s more optimistic than several other housing economist forecasts, which range from a 1.7% to 9% increase.<\/p>\n
Economists generally forecast that the average rate on a 30-year mortgage will remain slightly above 6% next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in November from the previous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27255,388,16375,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-101387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-home-sales","tag-real-estate","tag-real-estate-market","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}