There weren’t enough homes to serve all the buyers last month, pushing home sales to what The New York Times says “the fastest rate in over eight years.”
Numbers from the NAR released Wednesday show that sales of existing homes rose 3.2 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million, a rate the market hasn’t seen since 2007.
Climbing along with sales numbers were home prices, which jumped 6.5 percent year-over-year to $236,000, the highest ever reported by the NAR.
Inventory rose only slightly, 0.9 percent to 2.30 million existing homes available for sale, only 0.4 percent higher than a year ago.
Analysts say robust hiring over the last 21 months have enabled more Americans to enter the market as buyers. The number of sellers still lag, tightening inventory and catapulting prices upward.