
Home sales are slumping badly as affordability remains a hurdle
CBSN
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in October for the ninth month in a row to the slowest pre-pandemic sales pace in more than 10 years, as homebuyers grappled with sharply higher mortgage rates, rising home prices and fewer properties on the market.
Existing home sales fell 5.9% last month from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. The string of monthly sales declines this year is the longest on record on data going back to 1999, the NAR said.
Sales cratered 28.4% from October last year. Excluding the steep slowdown in sales that occurred in May 2020 near the start of the pandemic, sales are now at the slowest annual pace since December 2011, when the housing market was still mired in a deep slump following the foreclosure crisis of the late 2000s.

In the past year, over 135 million passengers traveled to the U.S. from other countries. To infectious disease experts, that represents 135 million chances for an outbreak to begin. To identify and stop the next potential pandemic, government disease detectives have been discreetly searching for viral pathogens in wastewater from airplanes. Experts are worried that these efforts may not be enough.