Existing home sales hit lowest point since 1995 in 2023: National Association of Realtors

In December 2023, existing home sales slipped 1% from November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.78 million, according to National Association of Realtors’ data released Friday. From the prior year, the rate of sales fell 6.2%. By this measure, current market conditions are seemingly even worse than when the housing bubble burst.

“Even during the 2008 housing bust, home sales weren’t as weak as they were in 2023,” Holden Lewis, a senior writer on mortgages at NerdWallet, said in a statement shared with Fortune. “The slow pace of sales can’t be blamed on lack of demand; there are plenty of renters who wish they could own.”

Instead, he argues, the issue is a lack of supply. Inventory levels are 36% lower than pre-pandemic levels, according to Zillow. Just one million previously owned homes were for sale at the end of December 2023, while existing home inventory was at 1.39 million in December 2019, Lewis said. Low inventory levels have been particularly tough on millennials and other younger buyers, Bright MLS chief economist, Lisa Sturtevant, said in a statement shared with Fortune. There is just 3.2 months of supply in the housing market, she adds, while a “balanced market” typically has four to six months of supply.

“Homeownership rates for this group remain lower than they were for prior generations, which indicates a significant level of pent-up demand,” she said. “Prospective homebuyers have been shut out of the market by a lack of inventory. If there had been more listings on the market in 2023, we would have had more home sales.”

But a…