U.S. existing home sales rise sequentially in October

The existing home sales in U.S. rose in the month of October on a sequential basis. Existing home sales rose to 5.48 million units from a revised 5.47 million in September. This was in contrary to a modest decline to 5.35 million units, stated Barclays in a research report. Both single family and condos/co-ops recorded rises, with single family sales growing 2.1 percent sequentially to 4.87 million and condos/co-ops rising 1.7 percent to 610k.

The rebound returns activity to around where it stood in July before the landfall of the three major storms in August and September. Region wise, existing home sales rose across the board, with sales in the Northeast rising 4.2 percent. Sales also rose in the West, South and the Midwest. Sales in the South dropped 5.7 percent and 1.4 percent in August and September, respectively, implying that an additional rebound in sales is likely next month in the South region, stated Barclays.

“Existing home sales were only modestly above our expectation, implying some additional boost to brokers’ commissions in the quarter. However, after rounding, our Q4 GDP tracking estimate remains unchanged at 2.7 percent”, added Barclays.

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