IRVINE, CA—Auction.com, LLC, the nation's leading online real estate marketplace, has released its April Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast which projects that existing home sales for the month of April will fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.15 and 5.47 million annual sales, with a targeted number of 5.31 million – up 2.3% from March and 11.8% from a year ago.
“Among the factors contributing to the jump in March's existing home sales, pent-up demand from weak sales in January and February probably played a significant role,” explained Auction.com executive vice president Rick Sharga. “Consumer psychology is likely also at play here: with talk of the Fed hiking interest rates as early as June, buyers who've been sitting on the sidelines may have decided to buy now and lock in today's historically low interest rates.”

But, he also issued a reminder to keep the recent data in perspective, noting, “While the surge in home sales is indeed welcome news to the housing market, it's important to keep the March numbers in context: in a truly healthy housing market, we'd be on pace for 6 million existing home sales. All March did was get us more or less back into the 5 million range, where we'll probably remain for the next year.”
Findings from the Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast suggest that sales prices for existing homes will fall between $201,052 and $222,215 during the month of April, with a targeted price of $211,633. This represents a 5 percent year-over-year increase for the month.
Earlier this week, the National Association of Realtors released its existing home sales data for March, reporting that home sales increased to 5.19 million units – well above what analysts expected, but within the range of 4.90 to 5.22 million units predicted by the Auction.com model on April 1. NAR also reported a March increase in existing home prices to $212,100 – within the range of $193,956 - $214,373 that Auction.com predicted last month and indicating a 7.8% increase compared to a year ago.
“Despite some wobbles in recent macroeconomic indicators, we've seen indications of an improved US labor market, suggesting a firmer foundation for growth. These indicators include not only headline employment growth and unemployment rates, but also the pace of voluntary quits, the stabilization of labor force participation and even some nascent signs of stirring wage growth,” said Auction.com chief economist Peter Muoio. “The improved labor market is an essential underlying footing for healthy home sales, and March's results – and more broadly the green shoots of housing sales and price strength – appear to bear this out.”