New York (AFP) - Sales of existing US homes fell sharply in November, a decline likely due in part to delays from new mortgage disclosure rules, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.
Existing-home sales fell 10.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million in November, the slowest pace in 19 months and well below the 5.3 million estimated by analysts.
NAR said the government's new "Know Before You Owe" rule, which is designed to simplify mortgage disclosure rules, likely played a factor in the big drop due to delays in closing times.
"It's possible the longer timeframes pushed a latter portion of would-be November transactions into December," said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.
"As long as closing timeframes don't rise even further, it's likely more sales will register to this month's total, and November's large dip will be more of an outlier."
Yun said other challenges to home sales include sparse inventory and affordability issues.
"However, signed contracts have remained mostly steady in recent months, and properties sold faster in November," he said.
"Therefore it's highly possible the stark sales decline wasn't because of sudden, withering demand."
Sales of single-family homes, the lion's share of the market, dropped 12.1 percent from October to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.15 million. The median existing single-family home price was $221,600, up 6.6 percent from November 2014.
Yun said the move by the Federal Reserve last week to lift US interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade will probably have a "minimal" impact on mortgage rates.
"Additional hikes will push borrowing costs to around 4.50 percent by the end of next year," Yun said. "With home prices expected to continue rising, wages and new home construction need to start increasing substantially to preserve affordability."
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