National home sales are showing signs of weakness after a market boom during the pandemic. Over a four-week period ending May 2, home sales fell 3%, according to a new report from Redfin analyzing home sales. In the subsequent four-week period ending May 28, housing prices also fell $2,500 to a median of $354,975. These trends could indicate the housing market is cooling.

New home listings also fell. From the four-week period ending May 2, new home listings decreased 8% from the same time in 2019 and 37% from the same period in 2021, when the housing market was taken off. Home listings are also down 5% from the peak in 2021. Overall, houses are staying on the market longer and past bid-review dates, and homes are either getting fewer offers than in the spring or in some cases only a single offer, according to Seattle Redfin real estate agent Alysan Long.

Mortgage applications are another indication that the market is showing retreating demand. For the four-week period ending May 28, mortgage applications were down 3%, paralleling the decrease in new home sales. However, mortgage applications were up again through June 3, increasing 2.99%.

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Kelsi Maree Borland

Kelsi Maree Borland is a freelance journalist and magazine writer based in Los Angeles, California. For more than 5 years, she has extensively reported on the commercial real estate industry, covering major deals across all commercial asset classes, investment strategy and capital markets trends, market commentary, economic trends and new technologies disrupting and revolutionizing the industry. Her work appears daily on GlobeSt.com and regularly in Real Estate Forum Magazine. As a magazine writer, she covers lifestyle and travel trends. Her work has appeared in Angeleno, Los Angeles Magazine, Travel and Leisure and more.