The housing market is now savagely unhealthy

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales for February came in as a miss of estimates at 6.02 million. This level is still within my 2022 forecast sales range between 5.74 million and 6.16 million. Last year I discussed sales levels coming back down to 5.84 million and I am looking for more of the same in 2022, at the 5.74 million level.

The month-to-month fall of existing home sales was noticeable, but I didn’t buy the January print of 6.5 million because I thought we had some spillover demand from December, so this month’s sales look right.