Surprise! Existing US home sales tumbled in June amid high prices and high rates.

It’s the same story month after tedious month. The 5.4% decline registered in June was nearly double the expected drop and pushed the annual sales pace below 4 million.

Since February of 2022, existing home sales have managed just six monthly gains.

As the figure shows, the pace is moribund. The market’s frozen.

That, despite the most inventory in years. Nationally, inventories were up more than 23% YoY at month-end. At 4.1, months’ supply was up one full month versus the same period a year ago. The NAR noted that June of 2024 was the first time unsold inventory printed a four-handle since May of 2020.

But it’s not making much of a difference for sales. Buyers are just waiting. Waiting, watching and, one imagines, despairing. The median price registered a new all-time high in June, at $426,900.

The 4.1% YoY advance was the 12th straight.

As usual, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun tried to put a positive spin on what I’m hard pressed to describe as anything other than a vexing situation for millions of aspiring US homeowners.

“We’re seeing a slow shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market,” Yun said Tuesday. “Homes are sitting on the market a bit longer, sellers are receiving fewer offers… and inventory is definitively rising on a national basis.”

That’s all fine and good, but so far, prices aren’t responding to higher inventory and it’s not bidding wars propping them (prices) up.

Hope springs eternal, though. At least if you’re Yun, God bless him. “Supply and demand dynamics are nearing a balanced condition,” he went on. “Even as the median home price reached a new record high, further large accelerations are unlikely.”

BMO’s US rates team summed it up. “Unlike during the housing crisis, the current slowdown in activity hasn’t been accompanied by the dramatic drop in prices one might otherwise have anticipated,” the bank’s Ian Lyngen said Tuesday. “It’s a well-traveled narrative at this point [but] the pandemic-era decline in mortgage rates allowed borrowers to lock in extremely low 30-year fixed financing and left many homeowners unwilling to consider moving, thereby limiting supply and allowing prices to remain elevated even as mortgage rates undermine affordability.”