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39 » VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM EXISTING HOME SALES VS. HOUSING SUPPLY e sale of existing homes declined 2.5 percent in April after seeing a brief upward movement in the previous two months according to the latest existing-home sales data released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops, decreased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.46 million in April, down from 5.6 million in March, the report indicated. On a year-over-year basis, home sales fell for two straight months and were 1.4 percent below a year ago in April, according to NAR. Additionally, this slump in sales was felt across all the four U.S. regions covered by NAR, thanks to the "staggeringly low inventory levels," according to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist, NAR. "e root cause of the underperforming sales activity in much of the country so far this year continues to be the utter lack of available listings on the market to meet the strong demand for buying a home," he said. e report noted that though total housing inventory at the end of April increased 9.8 percent to 1.80 million homes available for sale, it was still 6.3 percent lower than the level of 1.92 million recorded a year ago and had fallen for 35 consecutive months. Unsold inventory was at a four-month supply at the current pace of sales, compared to 4.2 months a year ago during the same period. "What is available for sale is going under contract at a rapid pace," Yun said. "Since NAR began tracking this data in May 2011, the median days a listing was on the market was at an all- time low in April, and the share of homes sold in less than a month was at an all-time high." While the median price for existing homes this April rose 5.3 percent to $257,900 from $245,000 in April 2017, the report indicated that properties stayed on the market for an average of 26 days in April. is was lower than 30 days recorded in February this year and 29 days during the same period a year ago. e report said that 57 percent of homes sold in April were on the market for less than a month. "With mortgage rates and home prices continuing to climb, an increase in housing supply is absolutely crucial to keeping affordability conditions from further deterioration," Yun said. "e current pace of price appreciation far above incomes is not sustainable in the long run." HOMEBUYER MIGRATION TRENDS IN Q1 2018 In the first quarter of this year, residents of Denver and Seattle looked to Los Angeles as their new home, according to the latest Migration Report by Redfin. e report found that 20 percent of Denver residents and 12 percent of Seattle residents looked to Los Angeles. While movers from these cities cited a need to find less-expensive living quarters in general, Redfin found that these residents were not moving to the city of Los Angeles proper. Rather, they were moving to the county, to more affordable markets like Riverside, in the Inland Empire. e move out of Denver is a sort of B-side to the migration to Denver just a few years ago. "Denver peaked at 40,000 net domestic migrations in 2015, meaning that many more people moved to Denver than left," the report stated. "Looking ahead, we expect Denver to see a negative net migration, or a loss of residents, in the 2019 Census." Meanwhile, in Seattle, the Census data revealed peak net domestic migration in 2016, but since last October, "more Seattleites are looking at homes elsewhere than the other way around," the report stated. e ironic part is that almost half the residents of Eugene, Oregon, who looked at new homes in Q1 looked mainly to Seattle as their next market. Last year, 9 percent of Seattle residents looked elsewhere. e national average for outflow in Q1 was 24 percent. Phoenix was another top destination for both Seattle and Denver in the quarter. at city had the largest net gain looking to move to the area from elsewhere, Redfin found. Unsurprisingly, the interest in Phoenix had to do with affordability. e median home sale price in Phoenix was $257,000 in April. at compares to $415,000 in Denver and $580,000 in Seattle. "e rate of home-price growth in Denver and Seattle is staggering, with Denver up 64 percent and Seattle up 76 percent over the last five years—more than double the national growth rate of 37 percent," the report stated. "ey also both consistently hold the top spots for the fastest housing market, in terms of how long homes stay on the market. ese competitive forces serve as a likely cause for the uptick in out-migration."

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