Cotality: U.S. Home Sales Slide to a 10-Year Low as Turnover Drops to 3.8%
IRVINE, Calif. — Property data firm Cotality's October market report, released October 29, shows U.S. home sales still sliding under the weight of high borrowing costs. Closed sales fell 5.4 percent year over year in September, pushing combined August and September volumes to their lowest level in a decade. Sales declined in 40 of the 50 largest metropolitan areas — Denver down 17.0 percent, Washington, D.C. down 12.1 percent and Atlanta down 11.0 percent — with New York City a notable exception, up nearly 1 percent.
The deeper issue is lock-in. The U.S. housing turnover rate has dropped to 3.8 percent, well below the 5.0 percent average recorded from 2011 through 2019. Cotality estimates that a return to a 5 percent rate would produce roughly 1.6 million additional home sales a year. Many owners hold mortgages far below today's rates and are unwilling to trade up into costlier loans: 30-year mortgage rates averaged 7.35 percent in October, versus a weighted-average rate of 4.33 percent on outstanding loans.
The report also notes that the asset side remains sound: mortgage holders sit on substantial tappable equity, and serious delinquency on adjustable-rate loans originated after 2010 was below 0.5 percent in mid-2026 — about half the rate for fixed-rate loans. In short, this is a market with equity but no transactions: scarcity props up prices while rates freeze sales. Any thaw depends on a meaningful fall in borrowing costs.
Source: Cotality
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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