After three straight months of declines, and despite a steep increase in financing costs, the marquee measure of existing home sales in America managed to post a modest increase for September.

Closings rose 1.5% last month, the NAR said Tuesday. Economists were expecting another decline.

The marginal advance, while surprising in the context of the highest mortgage rates in more than three years and sky-high home prices, does exactly nothing to change the overarching narrative.

As the figure above reminds you, the resale market remains very, very depressed. Even with the September gain, the annualized pace is below 4 million. Sales fell versus the same period a year ago.

For once, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun didn’t try to sugarcoat the situation. “Despite the small monthly gain, August and September marked the two slowest months for home sales this year,” he said. “Further increases in mortgage rates in recent weeks mean fewer buyers can qualify to purchase a home.”

Rates are up almost 150bps since the US and Israel assassinated Ali Khamenei. Unless and until Scott Bessent figures out a way to cap 10-year yields and bring down rates vol, meaningful relief may prove elusive.

The median sale price in September was $417,500, the lowest since April. Although we’re well off June’s record high, prices are still rising on a YoY basis.

The inventory picture continued to improve from buyers’ perspective, where that means there were more homes on the market and they’re sitting unsold for longer. As documented in these pages on any number of occasions, the buyer-seller imbalance currently favors the former by the most on record in Redfin data back to 2013.

But it scarcely matters. Not when the median household income’s ~30% below what’s needed to comfortably afford the typical home.