February Home Sales And Prices Should Rebound From Weak January Numbers According To Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast™
February Existing Home Sales Projected to Come in at 5.04 Million Units (SAAR) With a Median Sales Price of $201,077
IRVINE and SILICON VALLEY, Calif., Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Auction.com, LLC, the nation's leading online real estate marketplace, announced today that existing home sales in February should bounce back after January's lackluster numbers. The company released its February Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast™ which projects that existing home sales for the month will fall between 4.89 and 5.19 million annual sales on a seasonally adjusted basis, with a targeted number of 5.04 million.
Beginning this month, Auction.com is expanding the coverage of its forecast to include pricing trends. The February Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast suggests that sales prices for existing homes will fall between $191,649 and $211,718 during the month, with a targeted price of $201,077, representing a 6 percent year-over-year increase. Auction.com is incorporating Google Trends data and proprietary information from transactions occurring on the Auction.com residential sales platform to gauge pricing information as it is occurring.
"The housing market continues to face strong headwinds – extraordinarily limited inventory, tight credit, and, in some markets, problems with affordability," explained Auction.com Executive Vice President Rick Sharga. "A number of formerly red hot California markets experienced declines in both pricing and sales volume in January, which suggests that some exceeded affordability thresholds. On a national basis, we saw seasonal market challenges characteristic of the winter months, especially in the Northeast and Midwest. Whatever the specific reasons, January didn't provide a roaring start for 2015 home sales."
The National Association of Realtors® (NAR®) recently released its existing home sales data for January, reporting that home sales decreased to 4.82 million units, the lowest sales rate since April 2014. Auction.com originally predicted that existing home sales would come in at 5.06 million units, only to downgrade its projection one week later to fall between 4.83 and 5.19 million with a target of 5.01 million as Google Search Trends data and other housing market data began to indicate a downward shift in home sales. That revised prediction proved to be more accurate than consensus estimates, which missed on the downside by a wider margin.
"The modest pacing in existing home sales that we experienced last year has definitely continued in 2015, though we're now seeing signs that point toward improvement, such as consistent job growth, improved consumer confidence and emerging wage growth along with still low mortgage rates," said Auction.com Chief Economist Peter Muoio. "Overall, we hope that a stronger national economy may provide a long-awaited boost to the market as this year progresses."
About the Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast
The Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast combines industry data, proprietary company transactional data and Google search activity to predict market trends as they are occurring – weeks before the findings of other benchmark studies are released. Building upon the groundbreaking work by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian, the Nowcast model extends a traditional autoregressive-forecasting model to incorporate contemporaneous information that provides significantly enhanced accuracy.
Auction.com will occasionally update its Nowcast as fresh data provides additional signals for current home sales activity. The Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast model has proven highly accurate over the course of 2014.
Existing Home Sales
| Month |
Reported Existing Home Sales (in millions) |
Auction.com Point Estimate (SAR in millions) |
Auction.com Predicted Range (SAR in millions) |
| January 2014 |
4.62 |
4.91 |
4.72 – 5.11 |
| February 2014 |
4.60 |
4.72 |
4.54 – 4.91 |
| March 2014 |
4.59 |
4.77 |
4.59 – 4.96 |
| April 2014 |
4.66 |
4.83 |
4.64 – 5.02 |
| May 2014 |
4.91 |
4.88 |
4.69 – 5.07 |
| June 2014 |
5.03 |
5.08 |
4.88 – 5.28 |
| July 2014 |
5.14 |
5.17 |
4.97 – 5.37 |
| August 2014 |
5.05 |
5.23 |
5.03 – 5.44 |
| September 2014 |
5.17 |
5.10 |
4.90 – 5.30 |
| October 2014 |
5.26 |
5.18 |
4.98 – 5.38 |
| November 2014 |
4.93 |
5.25 |
5.05 – 5.46 |
| December 2014 |
5.04 |
4.98 |
4.79 – 5.17 |
| January 2015 |
4.82 |
5.01 |
4.83 – 5.19 |
| February 2015 |
TBD |
5.04 |
4.89 – 5.19 |
Sources: Google, NAR, Auction.com
Existing Home Sales Pricing
| Month |
Reported Existing |
YoY % Change |
Auction.com Point Estimate |
YoY % Change |
Auction.com Predicted Range |
| January 2014 |
$187,900 |
10.1% |
$194,662 |
9.2% |
$184,841 - $204,772 |
| February 2014 |
$188,400 |
8.8% |
$189,743 |
8.8% |
$180,469 - $199,308 |
| March 2014 |
$196,700 |
6.9% |
$190,991 |
8.3% |
$181,523 - $200,728 |
| April 2014 |
$201,500 |
5.1% |
$196,815 |
4.5% |
$186,853 - $206,068 |
| May 2014 |
$212,000 |
4.4% |
$202,179 |
5.5% |
$192,439 - $212,485 |
| June 2014 |
$222,000 |
3.7% |
$211,753 |
6.3% |
$201,481 - $222,953 |
| July 2014 |
$221,600 |
4.3% |
$219,381 |
5.1% |
$208,823 - $230,436 |
| August 2014 |
$218,400 |
4.1% |
$219,148 |
5.6% |
$208,379 - $230,261 |
| September 2014 |
$209,100 |
5.3% |
$214,433 |
3.9% |
$203,273 - $225,828 |
| October 2014 |
$207,500 |
5.1% |
$205,922 |
3.3% |
$195,625 - $216,112 |
| November 2014 |
$207,200 |
6% |
$204,204 |
2.1% |
$193,404 - $214,973 |
| December 2014 |
$208,200 |
5.3% |
$205,783 |
5.2% |
$195,279 - $216,782 |
| January 2015 |
$199,600 |
6.2% |
$205,126 |
5.4% |
$194,479 - $215,715 |
| February 2015 |
TBD |
TBD |
$201,077 |
6% |
$191,649 - $211,718 |
Sources: Google, NAR, Auction.com
About Auction.com:
Auction.com, LLC, is the nation's leading online real estate marketplace. Founded in 2007, the company has sold over $29 billion in residential and commercial real estate assets. Auction.com has over 900 employees and headquarters in Irvine and Silicon Valley, California as well as offices in Austin and Plano, Texas, Atlanta, Denver, New York and Miami. Visit www.auction.com for more information.
SOURCE Auction.com, LLC
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