(Kitco News) – The gold market is struggling to hold on to as U.S. consumers bought existing homes as the fast pace in 14 years, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Tuesday, the NAR said that existing home sales in August rose 2.4% to seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.00 million homes. The report noted that sales of existing homes hit their highest level since December 2006. However the data slightly missed expectations; according to consensus forecasts, economists were expecting to see a sales rate of 6.05.
“Home sales continue to amaze, and there are plenty of buyers in the pipeline ready to enter the market,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Further gains in sales are likely for the remainder of the year, with mortgage rates hovering around 3% and with continued job recovery.”
Although gold prices are off their session highs, the market is gold strong support above $1,900 an ounce. December gold futures last traded at $1,916.60 an ounce, up 0.31%.
Looking at home prices, the report sid that the median existing-home price for all housing types in August was $310,600, up 11.4% from August 2019.
As prices have risen, inventory has dropped significantly. The report said that the total inventory of existing homes as of the end of August totaled 1.49 million units, down 0.7% from July and down 18.6% from one year ago and represents a 3-month supply.
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