You guys, the housing market is not doing very well right now and I'm honestly wondering if it'll ever get better.

Yup, that's 12 straight months of decline in existing home sales.

A 37% crash year over year!

Existing home sales had fallen for a record 11 straight months ahead of this morning's print for January, which consensus expected to reveal a 2% MoM rebound. However, existing home sales for January actually tumbled 0.7% MoM (well below the 2.0% jump expected) and the record 12th straight monthly decline with December's 1.5% decline actually revised even worse to -2.2% MoM.

January's unexpected decline smashed sales to a record 36.9% YoY crash, dragging the total existing home sales SAAR is at its weakest since Oct 2010.

There are a number of reasons for this decline, and one of them is that people just don't want to leave their 3% rate for the current rate of around 7%. With inventory already at historically low levels, this trend is likely to continue.

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That is worse than at the very lows of the COVID lockdown crisis.

"Home sales are bottoming out," Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, said in a statement.

"Inventory remains low, but buyers are beginning to have better negotiating power."

Properties remained on the market for 33 days on average at the start of the year, up from 19 days a year earlier.

"Homes sitting on the market for more than 60 days can be purchased for around 10% less than the original list price," Yun said.

That's helping to put downward pressure on home prices.

The median selling price was up just 1.3% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain in home prices since January 2012, to $359,000.

According to Forbes, "70% of homeowners are sitting on a mortgage rate of 4% or less."

So with interest rates likely to be hiked again soon, this trend, like I said, will only continue. I mean, who's gonna trade 4% for 7, 8, or 9%?

I know I'm not!