US existing home sales jump in October for first time in six months
House buying activity in the States picked-up last month following a build-up in inventories of unsold homes.
According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales grew by 1.4% month-on-month in October to reach an annualised pace of 5.2m in seasonally adjusted terms (consensus: 5.20m).
It was the first increase in six months.
Nevertheless, commenting on Wednesday's figures, Lawrence Yun, the NAR's chief economist, said: "Rising interest rates and increasing home prices continue to suppress the rate of first-time homebuyers.
"Home sales could further decline before stabilizing. The Federal Reserve should, therefore, re-evaluate its monetary policy of tightening credit, especially in light of softening inflationary pressures, to help ease the financial burden on potential first-time buyers and assure a slump in the market causes no lasting damage to the economy."
The median price of an existing home meanwhile jumped by 3.8% on the month to reach $255,400.
In parallel, the pipeline of unsold homes slipped from 1.88m houses in September to 1.85m, but in terms of months' worth of supply it in fact dipped, from 4.4 months to 4.3 months, although that was higher than the 3.9 months' worth of homes which had been available one year before.
On the back of the latest figures on existing home sales, Barclays Research revised up its forecast for the rate of growth in third quarter US gross domestic product by a tenth of a percentage point to 2.7%.
But Barclays's Pooja Sriram said: "Despite the strong showing in October, the three-month moving average for existing home sales stands at 5.22mn, one of the lowest levels since 2016."