Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed for the fifth consecutive month in June as higher mortgage rates and rising prices kept many home hunters on the sidelines.
Existing home sales fell 5.4 percent last month from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.12 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
That’s lower than the 5.37 million home sales pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Sales fell 14.2 percent from June last year.
After climbing to a 6.49 million annual rate in January, sales have fallen to the slowest pace since June 2020, near the start of the pandemic, when they were running at an annualized rate of 4.77 million homes. Excluding the pandemic-related slowdown, sales in June were running at the slowest pace since January 2019….