Uncommon Pattern Emerging in Existing Home Inventory

As you may have gleaned from our coverage of new home sales, construction, builder confidence, and mortgage apps recently, there are only so many ways to describe the same phenomenon.  Today's report on October's Existing Home Sales from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is just another player on that same stage.  Like the others, it's languishing at the lowest levels in a long time and cutting a broadly sideways path. Like the others, we can tie the big drop in 2022 to the big rate spike in 2022.  After the problematic time frame highlighted in the chart below, little has changed for sale or rates in the bigger picture.  This particular data series has one other interesting nuance and it has to do with inventory levels.  Existing home inventory has a very reliabl