Existing home sales rose 3.2% in May from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.17 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Sales also rose 3.2% compared with May last year.<\/p>\n
Home sales increased from a year earlier in the Midwest, South and West, but fell in the Northeast, NAR said.<\/p>\n
The latest sales figure topped the roughly 4.07 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.<\/p>\n
Home sales have been mostly hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2-million.<\/p>\n
Sales rose last month even as\u00a0mortgage rates<\/a>\u00a0have continued to mostly trend higher this spring, although they remain below where they were a year ago.<\/p>\n Home prices continued to rise nationally last month. The U.S. median sales price increased 1.3% in May from a year earlier to $429,300, an all-time high for any May on data going back to 1999, NAR said. Home prices have risen on an annual basis for 35 months in a row.<\/p>\n The U.S. housing market has been in a\u00a0slump<\/a>\u00a0since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at\u00a0a 30-year low.<\/a>\u00a0They have remained sluggish so far this year. They were flat in April after declining from a year earlier through the first three months of this year.<\/p>\n Years of soaring home prices, especially in the early part of this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled a buying frenzy, have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And a chronic shortage of homes for sale nationally, due partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in a multiyear sales slump.<\/p>\n Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in March and April, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6% \u2014 close to its lowest level in three and a half years \u2014 to 6.46%, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. The average rate was at\u00a06.48% last week,<\/a>\u00a0down from 6.85% a year earlier.<\/p>\n While the average rate has remained below where it was a year ago, it has been mostly trending higher since the\u00a0war with Iran<\/a>\u00a0began, disrupting the passage of tankers ferrying crude oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide and driving\u00a0oil prices sharply higher<\/a>. Expectations of high oil prices as the war continues have pushed up the long-term bond yields that lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans, causing mortgage rates to climb.<\/p>\n Despite the uncertainty over mortgage rates, first-time buyers accounted for 35% of home purchases last month, the highest share going back to June 2020, Yun said. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.<\/p>\n Those who can afford to buy at current rates had more homes on the market to choose from last month, though home inventory levels remain well below historical norms.<\/p>\n There were 1.55 million unsold homes at the end of May, up 3.3% from April and up 0.6% from May last year, NAR said. That\u2019s still short of the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n May\u2019s month-end inventory translates to a 4.5-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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes accelerated last month to their fastest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27255,144215,16373,388,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-353182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-home-sales","tag-house-sales","tag-mortgage-rates","tag-real-estate","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\/353182","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=353182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Information](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Home_Sales_8598_.jpg\")
Information sign about open house for home sale is seen outside of a home in Wheeling, Ill., Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo\/Nam Y. Huh)<\/p>\n