{"id":67347,"date":"2016-12-27T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sales-of-existing-homes-soar-in-november\/"},"modified":"2016-12-27T14:01:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T14:01:00","slug":"sales-of-existing-homes-soar-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sales-of-existing-homes-soar-in-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales of existing homes soar in November"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Americans
Americans bought homes in November at the fastest pace in nearly a decade, despite a shortage of houses for sale.<\/span>Alan Diaz\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 Americans bought homes in November in the fastest pace in nearly a decade. But rising mortgage rates, a deepening shortage of houses and higher prices are likely to weigh on the market next year.<\/p>\n

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes rose 0.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.61 million. That was up from a downwardly revised 5.57 million in October and the highest since sales hit a 5.79 million pace in February 2007. Sales were up 15 percent from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Sales rose 8 percent in the Northeast and 1.4 percent in the South, but fell in the West and Midwest.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 1.9 million homes were on the market, down 9 percent from a year earlier. The tight supply pushed the median price to $234,900 last month, up 6.8 percent from a year ago.<\/p>\n

The Commerce Department reported Friday that housing starts fell 18.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted 1.09 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a housing shortage,\u201d said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors\u2019 chief economist. \u201cWe are not building enough housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, the rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage last week rose to a 52-week high of 4.16 percent. U.S. interest rates have climbed since the Nov. 8 election of Donald Trump. Investors have bid rates higher because they expect Trump\u2019s program of tax cuts and higher spending on defense and infrastructure will boost economic growth and inflation.<\/p>\n

The Realtors predict that higher rates and declining affordability in many parts of the country likely will lead to only a small gain in sales of existing homes next year \u2013 a 2 percent increase to about 5.52 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome prospective buyers are going to be straining to get to an affordable monthly payment with mortgage rates higher and may take a harder line on prices (or settle for less home) to make the numbers work,\u201d Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities, said in a research note.<\/p>\n

Still, a healthy job market has given more Americans the confidence to shop for homes. Unemployment is at a nine-year low 4.6 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

and mortgage rates likely will slow the pace in 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,614],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-67347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-real-estate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67347"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=67347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}