Looking Beyond The Rosy Housing Report
When the National Association of Realtors reported last week that home sales rose in June — the third consecutive month that sales increased — the media gobbled the news up. Some news reports even attributed the Dow Jones gains to the rosy Realtor report.
But here’s what a lot of the stories missed: sales typically rise month-to-month from April to June. As the weather warms up, more sales transactions occur. The closer it gets to summer, the more closings you see. The NAR report mentioned that June sales were up 0.2 percent higher than last June – which means that sales were essentially flat. Even in Massachusetts, month-to-month sales have climbed from April to June every year since at least 2002, according to The Warren Group. Tomorrow, The Warren Group will release its June housing report for Massachusetts, and yes, single-family home sales were up from May but they’re still below year-ago levels. And the number of sales for the month were way below what the state experienced in the late 1990s when over 7,000 home sales were recorded in June.