by Calculated Risk on 11/14/2014 04:22:00 PM

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Based on local realtor/MLS reports from across the country released so far this month, I estimate that US existing home sales as measured by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.28 million, up 2.1% from September’s pace and up 2.9% from last October’s pace. My “best guess” is that the NAR’s estimate for the number of existing homes for sale at the end October will be down about 3% from September and up about 5.7% from last October. Finally, I “guesstimate” that the NAR’s estimate for the median existing SF home sales price in October will be up by about 4.4% from last October.

A few notes: first, not all realtor/MLS reports define “inventory” in the same way, and some of the publicly-released reports differ from reports sent to the NAR. These differences have made my NAR inventory estimates less reliable than my sales estimates. Second, lately the NAR median existing SF home sales prices have shown faster YOY growth than local realtor/MLS reports would have suggested, and in September the YOY increase in the median sales price in the Northeast was WAY higher than state realtor report would have indicated. I don’t know why.

I’ll update my estimate next week if newly-released realtor/MLS reports warrant an update.

CR Note: the NAR is scheduled to release October existing home sales next Thursday,  The consensus is the NAR will report sales at a 5.10 million SAAR (the consensus will move up once this is posted!)