In what is generally the second-strongest month for home sales, home closing dropped 33.7 percent in May, according to a national housing report from RE/MAX.
RE/MAX’s report said all 53 markets it analyzed had double-digit, year-over-year declines in May sales. The report said sales in four markets dropped by more than half, with Detroit experiencing a 64.8 percent drop in May. Eighteen markets saw May sales drop by one-fourth to one-third.
“Not surprisingly, May sales were historically muted alongside increasingly pinched inventory as the full brunt of the pandemic likely manifested itself during the month,” RE/MAX Holdings CEO Adam Contos said in a release. “However, as the local outlook across the country increasingly pivoted to how soon stay-at-home restrictions might end, multiple leading indicators in the U.S. housing market have turned positive, some even on a year-over-year basis.”
According to the report, the sales decline for Des Moines, Iowa, of 14.3 percent in May was the smallest. RE/MAX said May inventory dropped 25 percent year-over-year to one of the lowest levels for May in the report's 12-year history. Only Indianapolis (12.7 percent); Wichita, Kan. (4.3 percent); and Chicago (1 percent) had increases in the number of homes for sale compared with May 2019.
“We believe the spring selling season was largely deferred for several weeks. And, with home being the center of people’s lives this year, we could see the effect of pent-up demand play out in a significant way,” Contos said. “Absent another major coronavirus wave, inventory levels and the unemployment rate may well be the governors on how strong the housing market performs this year.”