Spring selling season was a dud. But mortgage rates are not high; inflation is high.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Sales of existing single-family homes that closed in June fell by 2.4% from May, seasonally adjusted, to an annual rate of 3.73 million sales, in the rock-bottom range that sales have been stuck in for four years, according to data by the National Association of Realtors today.

Compared to June in prior years (historical data from YCharts):

• 2025: +3.3% (year-over-year)
• 2024: +5.1%
• 2023: +1.4%
• 2022: -18.6%
• 2021: -28.8%
• 2019: -21.5%
• 2015: -21.8%
• 2009: +1.9% (Housing Bust)
• 1996: -1.1%

Supply of single-family homes rose to 4.6 months in June, the highest since 2016.

Supply is a function of inventory and sales – how much inventory there is in relationship to demand. Sales have hobbled along rock-bottom, while inventories have been rising (historical data from YCharts).

Sales of condos and co-ops fell by 2.7% seasonally adjusted in June from May, and by 2.7% year-over-year, to annual rate of 360,000, a record low, shared also by May 2020 and May 2025, all of them the same record low in the data that go back only to late 2011.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: -2.7% (year-over-year)
• 2021: -50.7%
• 2019: -36.8%
• 2012: -25.0% (first June in the data series)

Supply of condos rose to 6.4 months, along with May, June, and September last year the highest since 2012.

Sales by region of existing homes of all types.

On a month-to-month basis, seasonally adjusted, sales of existing homes (single-family, condos, and co-ops combined) in June fell in the South (-3.6%), the Midwest (-3.0%), and the West (-1.3%), and rose in the Northeast (+2.1%).

Compared to the same month in 2019, sales in June were down: in the West (-33%), Northeast (-29%), Midwest (-21%), and South (-17%). A map of the four regions is below the article at the top of the comments.

In the South, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales fell 3.6% in June from May, to 1,890,000 homes.

Compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: +3.8% (year-over-year)
• 2024: +6.2%
• 2023: 0%
• 2022: -17.1%
• 2019: -16.7%
• 2018: -16.4%

In the West, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales fell 1.3% in June from May, to 740,000 homes.

Compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: +2.8% (year-over-year)
• 2024: 0%
• 2023: 0%
• 2022: -23.7%
• 2019: -32.7%
• 2018: -35.7%

In the Midwest, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales fell 3.0% in June from May, to 980,000 homes.

Compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: +2.1% (year-over-year)
• 2024: +5.4%
• 2023: 0%
• 2022: -20.3%
• 2019: -21.0%
• 2018: -22.8%

In the Northeast, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales rose by 2.1% in June from May, to 480,000 homes, but still just a smidgen above the record low in NAR’s data, which goes back to 1999.

Compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: 0% (year-over-year)
• 2024: 0%
• 2023: -4.0%
• 2022: -26.2%
• 2019: -29.4%
• 2018: -32.4%

But mortgage rates are not high; inflation is high.

The average weekly 30-year fixed mortgage rate through Wednesday ticked up to 6.49%, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly measure released today.

Mortgage rates key off the 10-year Treasury yield (4.55% at the moment), but are higher, and the spread between them varies.

Inflation accelerated to 4.2% in May, as measured by CPI, and these 30-year fixed mortgage rates are only 2.3 percentage points above the rate of inflation.

Current mortgage rates are at the lower end of the spectrum that prevailed in the decades before the Fed’s QE which started in 2009 and involved purchases of trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities to suppress mortgage rates and pump up home prices and create the current affordability crisis.

Mega-QE during the pandemic, which triggered the below-3% mortgage rates and the negative “real” mortgage rates (mortgage rates below the rate of inflation), was the main culprit in the explosion of home prices from mid-2020 to mid-2022, and thereby the main culprit of the “affordability” crisis since then. Mega-QE also helped trigger the worst consumer price inflation in 40 years.

The housing market – buyers, sellers, and everyone in between – needs to get used to these mortgage rates.

National median price, local prices, inflation, and wage increases.

The median price of single-family homes inched up year-over-year by 1.8% in June, not seasonally adjusted, to $446,400.

From a macro perspective, since late 2022, the national median home price has been inching up at a pace that is substantially below the rate of inflation and wage increases. That is one way to very slowly, over many years, resolve the affordability crisis that was caused by the price explosion of the national median price of over 40% in two years from mid-2020 to mid-2022 that had come on top of already high prices.

From June 2022 through June 2026, over those four years:

• National median price of single-family homes: +6.1%.
• Consumer Price Index (CPI): +13.2%
• Average hourly earnings: +16.9%

But for people buying or selling a home, the national median price is irrelevant. What matters to buyers and sellers are prices in their local markets, where prices vary dramatically. Single-family home prices have dropped by 10% to 26% in 15 bigger markets, including:

• Austin, TX: -26%
• Oakland, CA: -25%
• New Orleans, LA: -20%
• Sarasota County, FL: -17%

But in some other bigger cities, prices of single-family homes have continued to rise to new highs, notably year-over-year:

• New York City: +5.1%
• Chicago: +3.9%
• Milwaukee: +3.7%.

On a national scale, these diverging markets nearly balance each other out, to where the national median price of single-family homes has been up by 0% to 2% year-over-year since April last year.

The national median price of condos and co-ops rose year-over-year by 1.6%. The year-over-year readings have ranged since April last year from -0.8% (September) to +4.0% (January).

On a local basis,  condo prices have plunged by 15% to 33% in 24 markets from their highs, with several markets dropping below their highs in 2006. From peak:

• Cape Coral, FL: -33%
• Oakland, CA: -31%
• Petersburg, Fl: -28%
• Austin, TX: -27%
• Fort Myers, FL: -26%
• Sarasota County, FL: -24%
• Tampa, FL: -20%
• Garland, TX: -19%.

In case you missed it: Unwinding the “Lock-in Effect” Suddenly Stalls as Homeowners Stopped Paying Off Below-3% Mortgages

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