It says a lot, none of it especially encouraging, about the resale market for US homes when a 1.5% month-to-month increase in the annual pace of closings counts as a robust result.

If you forgot there was a US macro release scheduled for Thursday, no one will blame you. The second-longest government shutdown in American history has all but cleaned out the data docket, leaving a sparse smattering of private sector reports as the only quantitative signposts for the trajectory of the world’s largest economy.

Trying to keep apprised of those sparse reports is about like trying to keep up with what day it is when you’re retired: Possible, and in some sense imperative, but easy enough to forget all the same.

The 4.06 million pace for existing home sales in September reported by the NAR was in line with consensus, but as the figure below reminds you, this is a slog during vivacious months and quick sand during all the others.

About the best you can say for the series is that things aren’t getting worse.

That’s problematic because with rates sitting near the lowest levels of 2025, things should be getting better. But, as documented here on Wednesday, deals are still falling through at very elevated rates, indicative of a math problem that’s simply unsolvable for (too) many American renters.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun found a way to spin Thursday’s release as something other than the objectively lackluster readout that it was. “[F]alling mortgage rates [and] improving housing affordability are lifting home sales,” he said. “Inventory is matching a five-year high, though it remains below pre-COVID levels.”

Forgive me, but I doubt the chart below suggests “improving housing affordability” to anyone struggling to get their foot in the door.

The median existing home price last month was $415,200, down from August but up more than 2% YoY. It was the 27th straight YoY gain.

Crucially — and this really can’t be emphasized enough — the YoY price declines in 2023 were fleeting, shallow and came on the heels of successive staggering gains, which is to say the current run of 27 consecutive annual increases is more or less on top of the original post-pandemic surge.

The argument for improving affordability is basically this: Yes, prices are rising versus last year, but they’re falling MoM and mortgage rates are falling too, so buyers are in a better position, particularly given there are around half a million fewer of them (buyers) versus sellers.

I won’t argue with that, but… well, Redfin’s Dana Anderson summed things up nicely. Mortgage rates near a three-year low are “opening the door for homebuyers, but few are walking through,” she wrote Thursday.

Yun got one thing right. “Many homeowners are financially comfortable,” he said. Rising home prices are “contributing to overall household wealth.”