At the national level, housing affordability is up from last month but down from a year ago. Mortgage rates rose to 4.78 percent this August, up 14.1 percent compared to 4.19 percent a year ago.

• Housing affordability declined from a year ago in August moving the index down 8.3 percent from 153.9 to 141.2. The median sales price for a single family home sold in August in the US was $267,300 up 4.9 percent from a year ago.
• Nationally, mortgage rates were up 59 basis point from one year ago (one percentage point equals 100 basis points).

• The payment as a percentage of income was down to 17.7 percent this August but up from 16.2 percent from a year ago. Regionally, the West has the highest payment at 24 percent of income. The South had the second highest payment at 17 percent followed by the Northeast at 16.5 percent. The Midwest had the lowest payment as a percentage of income at 14.2 percent.

• Regionally, the West recorded the biggest increase in home prices at 5.2 percent. The Midwest had an increase of 4.2 percent while the South had a gain of 3.6 percent. The Northeast had the smallest growth in price of 0.1 percent.
• Regionally, all four regions saw a decline in affordability from a year ago. The Midwest had the biggest drop in affordability of 7.8 percent. The West had a decline of 7.7 percent followed by the South that fell 7.0 percent. The Northeast had the smallest drop of 5.5 percent.
• On a monthly basis, affordability is up from last month in three of the four regions. The Northeast had biggest gain of 6.2 percent. The South had an incline of 2.4 percent followed by the West with a slight increase of 0.1 percent. The Midwest had the only dip in affordability of 4.8 percent.
• Despite month-to-month changes, the most affordable region was the Midwest, with an index value of 175.7. The least affordable region remained the West where the index was 101.2. For comparison, the index was 146.7 in the South, and 151.2 in the Northeast.

• Mortgage applications are currently down. Mortgage rates are still rising along with rents. Foot traffic is up which shows there is interest from future homebuyers. Job creation remains steady and new homes sales are continuing to incline. Home prices are up 4.9 percent outpacing median family incomes that are growing 3.0 percent.
• What does housing affordability look like in your market? View the full data release here.
• The Housing Affordability Index calculation assumes a 20 percent down payment and a 25 percent qualifying ratio (principal and interest payment to income). See further details on the methodology and assumptions behind the calculation here.

In a monthly survey of REALTORS®, respondents reported that properties were typically on the market for 29 days, just a day shorter time compared to one year ago (30 days), according to the  August 2018 REALTORS® Confidence Index Survey.[1] This indicates that in many states, the supply of homes for sale is still inadequate compared to the demand for homes. However, the difference in median days in the current month compared to the same month last year has started to narrow as homebuying demand has eased and the inventory of homes for sale has slightly increased. In January and February of this year, properties were selling about one week less compared to the length of time in the same period one year ago.

During the June–August 2018, properties typically sold within one month in 32 states and in the District of Columbia. Properties sold most quickly in the states of South Dakota (19 days), Washington (20 days), Colorado (21 days), Utah (21 days), Ohio (21 days), Idaho (22 days), Massachusetts (21 days), and Rhode Island (21 days).

Based on listing time on Realtor.com[2], properties sold more quickly in 385 out of 500 metro areas (77 percent)—still most of metro areas, but fewer than the number of metro areas that had year-on-year faster selling time in August 2017 (405 metros). Compared to the median days on market one year ago, properties sold more quickly in August 2018 even in the high-price areas of San Jose-Sunnyvale-Sta. Clara, San Francisco-Hayward, and San Diego-Carlsbad.

Scroll down the list of metro areas in the interactive table below or hover over the map to view the median number days properties were listed on Realtor.com in July 2018 and one year ago.

About the Realtors® Confidence Index 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 August 2018 survey was sent to 50,000 REALTORS® who were selected from NAR’s1.3 million members through simple random sampling and to 8,386 respondents in the previous three surveys who provided their email addresses. There were 4,639 respondents to the online survey which ran from September 1-11, 2018. NAR weights 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] In generating the median days on market at the state level, NAR uses data for the last three surveys to have close to 30 observations. Small states such as AK, ND, SD, MT, VT, WY, WV, DE, and D.C., may have fewer than 30 observations.

[2] To access Realtor.com data, go to https://www.realtor.com/research/data/.

• NAR released a summary of pending home sales data showing that August’s pending home sales pace was down 1.8 percent last month and fell 2.3 percent from a year ago.
• Pending sales represent homes that have a signed contract to purchase on them but have yet to close. They tend to lead existing-home sales data by 1 to 2 months.
• Three of the four regions showed declines from a year ago. The South had the only incline in pending sales of 1.3 percent. The West had a very substantial drop in sales of 11.3 percent. The Northeast fell 1.6 percent followed by the Midwest with a decline of 1.1 percent.
• From last month, all four regions showed declines in sales. The Midwest region had the smallest drop of 0.5 percent followed by the South, which fell 0.7 percent. The Northeast had a decline of 1.3 percent followed by the West with the biggest drop of 5.9 percent.
• The U.S. pending home sales index level for the month was 104.2. July’s data was revised up to 106.1.

• In spite of the decline, this is the pending index’s 52nd consecutive month over the 100 level.
• The 100 level is based on a 2001 benchmark and is consistent with a healthy market and existing-home sales above the 5 million mark.