• NAR released a summary of existing-home sales data showing that housing market activity this April fell 2.5 percent from last month and dropped 1.4 percent from last year. April’s existing home sales reached 5.46 million seasonally adjusted annual rate.
• The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $257,900 in April, up 5.3 percent from a year ago. This marks the 74th consecutive month of year-over-year gains.
• Regionally, all four regions showed growth in prices from a year ago, with the West leading all regions with an incline of 6.2 percent. The Midwest had a gain of 4.6 percent followed by the South with a gain of 3.9 percent. The Northeast had the smallest gain of 2.8 percent from April 2017.

• April’s inventory figures are up 9.8 percent from last month to 1.67 million homes for sale. However, compared with April of 2017, fewer homes are available, with inventory down 6.2 percent, marking 35 months of year-over-year declines. It will take 4.0 months to move the current level of inventory at the current sales pace. Transactions are moving faster and it takes approximately 26 days for a home to go from listing to a contract in the current housing market, down from 39 days a year ago.

• From March, three of the four regions experienced declines in sales. The Northeast had the biggest decline of 4.4 percent followed by the West with a drop of 3.3 percent. The South fell 2.9 percent. The Midwest region was flat.
• Three of the four regions showed declines in sales from a year ago. The Northeast had the biggest drop in sales of 11.0 percent followed by the Midwest with a decline of 3.0 percent. The West had a modest dip of 0.8 percent. The South was the only region to have a gain of 2.2 percent. The South led all regions in percentage of national sales, accounting for 42.7 percent of the total, while the Northeast had the smallest share at 11.9 percent.

• In April, single-family sales declined 3.0 percent and condominiums sales rose 1.6 percent compared to last month. Single-family home sales fell 1.6 percent and condominium sales were unchanged compared to a year ago. Both single-family and condominiums had an increase in price with single-family up 5.5 percent at $259,900 and condominiums up 3.4 percent at $245,500 from April 2017.

The REALTORS® Confidence Index (RCI) survey[1] gathers monthly information from REALTORS® about local real estate market conditions, characteristics of buyers and sellers, and issues affecting homeownership and real estate transactions.[2] This report presents key results about market transactions from April 2018. View and download the full report here.

Market Conditions and Expectations

• The REALTORS® Buyer Traffic Index registered at 74 (75 in April 2017).[3]
• The REALTORS® Seller Traffic Index registered at 45 (46 in April 2017).
• The REALTORS® Confidence Index—Six–Month Outlook Current Conditions registered at 74 for detached single-family, 63 for townhome, and 59 for condominium properties. An index above 50 indicates market conditions are expected to improve.
• Properties were typically on the market for 26 days (29 days in April 2017).
• Eighty-eight percent of respondents reported that home prices remained constant or rose in April 2018 compared to levels one year ago (82 percent in April 2017).

Characteristics of Buyers and Sellers

• First-time buyers accounted for 33 percent of sales (34 percent in April 2017).
• Vacation and investment buyers comprised 15 percent of sales (15 percent in April 2017).
• Sales of distressed properties (foreclosed or sold as a short sale) accounted for 3.5 percent of sales (5 percent in April 2017).
• Cash sales made up 21 percent of sales (21 percent in April 2017).
• Eighteen percent of sellers offered incentives such as paying for closing costs (8 percent), providing a warranty (7 percent), and undertaking remodeling (2 percent).[4]

Issues Affecting Buyers and Sellers

• From February–April 2018, 78 percent of contracts settled on time (72 percent in April 2017).
• Among sales that closed in April 2018, 75 percent had contract contingencies. The most common contingencies pertained to home inspection (55 percent), obtaining financing (44 percent), and getting an acceptable appraisal (41 percent).
• REALTORS® report “low inventory”, “interest rates”, and “multiple offers” as the major issues affecting transactions in April 2018.

About the RCI Survey

• The RCI Survey gathers information from REALTORS® about local market conditions based on their client interactions and the characteristics of their most recent sales for the month.
• The April 2018 survey was sent to 50,000 REALTORS® who were selected from NAR’s 1.3 million members through simple random sampling and to 7,082 respondents in the previous three surveys who provided their email addresses.
• There were 4,555 respondents to the online survey which ran from May 1-9, 2018. The survey’s overall margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level is one percent. The margins of error for subgroups and sample proportions of below or above 50 percent are larger.
• NAR weighs the responses by a factor that aligns the sample distribution of responses to the distribution of NAR membership.

The REALTORS® Confidence Index is provided by NAR solely for use as a reference. Resale of any part of this data is prohibited without NAR’s prior written consent. For questions on this report or to purchase the RCI series, please email: Data@realtors.org

[1] Thanks to George Ratiu, Managing Director, Housing and Commercial Research and Gay Cororaton, Research Economist for their data analysis and comments to the RCI Report.

[2] Respondents report on the most recent characteristics of their most recent sale for the month.

[3] An index greater than 50 means more respondents reported conditions as “strong” compared to one year ago than “weak.” An index of 50 indicates a balance of respondents

who viewed conditions as “strong” or “weak.”

[4] The difference in the sum of percentages to the total percentage of sellers who offered incentives is due to rounding.