Sales of previously owned US homes slipped back in June, dragged down by stubbornly high mortgage rates that have kept the housing market stuck in a yearslong slump.
Contract closings fell 2.4% to an annualized rate of 4.09 million last month, data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors show. That fell short of the 4.2 million median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
"The back-and-forth in monthly home sales activity, driven by mild fluctuations in mortgage rates, shows how sensitive home buyers are to affordability conditions," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. But recent job gains will continue to provide support to the housing market, he added.
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The step-down in sales saps some of the recent momentum seen in the US home resale market. Both existing home sales and contract signings, which take place a month or two earlier than closings, had been trending up in recent months. However, with mortgage rates frozen near 6.6%, affordability remains a key challenge for Americans hoping to buy.
NAR's Housing Affordability Index, which measures whether typical families can qualify for a mortgage for a median-priced home, has improved somewhat from a year ago but is at its lowest since August 2025.
Last month, the median sales price of a previously owned home rose 1.8% from a year ago to a record high of $440,600, NAR data show. While prices continue to climb, the advance is far smaller than the gains seen a couple years ago.
Meantime, the inventory of existing homes for sale climbed 1.3% from a year earlier to 1.56 million. From a month earlier, however, it fell slightly for the first time this year. Yun called the annual gain "minuscule."
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"We need to see 30%, 40%," he said on a call with reporters. "We're not seeing that."
Weakness in the US South, the nation's biggest home-selling region, helped drag down the national results, with sales there declining 3.6% to an annualized 1.89 million. Sales also slipped in the Midwest and West, though they gained in the Northeast.
First-time buyers accounted for 33% of sales in June, compared with 35% in May.
