The median price of an existing US home sold in June rose 2.2% year over year to a record $408,776, The Kobeissi Letter reports, citing National Association of Realtors data. San Francisco led metro-area price gains at 9.2% year over year, followed by Pittsburgh at 9.1% and West Palm Beach at 8.6%, with luxury purchases driving much of the increase in those markets. Sales activity picked up alongside prices. Existing home sales rose 4.2% year over year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 4.4 million, the fastest pace since November 2022, and San Francisco and West Palm Beach also posted the sharpest jumps in closed sales, up 23.8% and 23.1% respectively. But the supply side is tightening rather than easing the pressure. New listings fell 0.8% from May to 377,000, their lowest level since December, meaning buyers are competing for a shrinking pool of homes even as borrowing costs stay elevated. The combination of record prices, quickening sales and shrinking inventory points to a housing market where affordability keeps getting worse for anyone not already buying with cash or heavy equity from a prior home.
Why it matters · Housing costs feed directly into how the Fed reads inflation and how much room households have to spend on anything else, so a market that's both accelerating and getting less affordable at the same time complicates the rate-cut case.
Worth asking · Record prices and a four-year sales high are happening at the same time as shrinking listings. Is this a housing market genuinely strengthening, or one where fewer sellers are just locking in gains before conditions turn?