Surprise! Existing US home sales fell last month, according to Thursday’s update from the recognized authority on America’s resale market.

I’m not surprised. I doubt readers are either. In fact, it’s probably not too much of an exaggeration to say the only people taken aback by the drop were housing market “experts,” who’ve seen more false dawns than the post-Patrick Ewing New York Knicks.

To be sure, the drop wasn’t pronounced. This wasn’t any sort of disaster. But the marginal downtick did underscore the notion that the spring buying season’s a bust. Moreover, the lackluster showing for April was especially disappointing coming as it did on the heels of the largest monthly drop since 2022 the prior month.

Economists expected a 2% uptick from Thursday’s readout. The decline pushed the annualized rate to just four million, the slowest since September.

Supply increased, and the pace of price gains moderated, but as the NAR’s Lawrence Yun begrudgingly acknowledged, it just doesn’t matter. The math’s too daunting for too many people.

“Home sales have been at 75% of normal or pre-pandemic activity for the past three years, even with seven million jobs added to the economy,” Yun said Thursday, adding that although there’s plenty of “pent-up demand,” it can’t all manifest as contract activity unless and until the affordability calculus is more forgiving.

Frankly, it feels like we’re moving into a conjuncture where prices will have to adjust meaningfully to compensate for mortgage rates, which’ll remain stuck near 7% in light of steady upward pressure on long-end US Treasury yields.

With that in mind, the YoY gain for the median existing home sales price was just 1.8% in April.

As the figure shows, that’s the slowest annual price growth since July of 2023. And yet, price gains are still price gains, and April marked the 22nd straight YoY advance. The $414,000 median was a new April record.

Again, I think sellers would do well to drop their prices now to get deals done rather than hold out. Rate relief probably isn’t forthcoming, and with inventories rising, this market’s about to flip in favor of buyers.

Yun agrees. “We are still in a mild seller’s market, but with the highest inventory levels in nearly five years, consumers are in a better situation to negotiate for better deals,” he said.