WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas – The Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter has set a new record and is celebrating with free adoptions this weekend.
WCRAS says that 95 lost animals were returned to their loving homes during January, the most in a single month.
To celebrate, the shelter is hosting a No Place Like Home adoption special on Saturday, Feb. 4. Adoption fees for all medium-to-large adult dogs and adult cats will be free.
“As the only shelter solely devoted to the lost dogs and cats in our jurisdictions, we believe that the very best outcome for each lost pet is for them to return to their home, back with their families who love and care for them,” said animal services director Misty Valenta. “Plus, the more we reunite lost animals, the more we can help the dogs and cats who truly need new homes. We love seeing lost pets reunited with their loving families and are so happy for the 95 families who were made whole again in January.”
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WCRAS recommends owners microchip their pets and keep the contact information up-to-date to help reunite lost pets with their homes. Collars with tags are also recommended.
Owners that do lose their pets are also advised to check area shelters frequently. WCRAS has a Lost & Found page of animals looking for their homes.
Owners coming to reclaim their pet are asked to bring proof of ownership, such as photos or vet records; and proof of rabies vaccination, such as a photo of the pet’s rabies certificate or where the animal received the vaccination.
Interested adopters can preview all the adoptable pets at the shelter by visiting wilcopets.org. Appointments are recommended to help reduce wait times at the shelter; to schedule an appointment, email adoption@wilco.org. Walk-ins are welcome from noon to 6 p.m. daily.
Feb 1 (Reuters) – Humana Inc (HUM.N) on Wednesday beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit as the health insurer’s investment income jumped, even as the company reported higher-than-expected medical costs.
Humana’s fourth-quarter benefit expense ratio, or the percentage of payout on claims compared to its premiums, fell by 1 percentage point to 87.5%, but was higher than analysts’ estimate of 87.20%.
Health insurers’ costs were expected to decline on lower COVID-19-related hospitalizations, though there were concerns around a surge in flu and respiratory syncytial virus cases in the last quarter of 2022.
The respiratory season could be the primary reason behind high-than-expected benefit expense ratio, SVB Securities analyst Whit Mayo said.
Humana forecast adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of at least $28 for 2023, in line with analysts’ expectations, with Chief Executive Officer Bruce Broussard confident of achieving its 2025 adjusted EPS commitment of $37.
The health insurer said it expects to add at least 625,000 members to its Medicare Advantage plan this year.
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Medicare Advantage is the government-supported insurance by private companies for people over 65 years of age and has been growing at a rapid pace, outshining government-provided Medicare plans due to heavy competition among insurers for the same set of customers.
Excluding one-off items, the health insurer reported a profit of $1.62 per share, higher than analysts’ average estimate of $1.46 per share, according to Refinitiv data.
The company’s $160 million investment income was higher than Wall Street estimates of $136.7 million, Oppenheimer analyst Michael Wiederhorn said.
Humana recorded a loss of $71 million, or 12 cents per share, for the quarter due to a one-time charge of $188 million associated with its $1 billion investment plan for its Medicare business announced in February last year.
Reporting by Leroy Leo and Khushi Mandowara in Bengaluru
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi
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NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Memory chip maker Western Digital Corp (WDC.O) said on Tuesday it will receive $900 million through a convertible preferred stock deal from private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc (APO.N) and hedge fund Elliott Management Corp.
Western Digital said the preferred stock it sold to Apollo and Elliot has a conversion price of $47.75 per share, which is approximately a 9% premium on its closing price of $43.95 on Tuesday. It will also pay a dividend starting at 6.25% per year.
Last year, Western Digital launched a review of strategic alternatives, including options for splitting off its flash-memory and hard-drive businesses, after activist Elliott disclosed a stake of nearly $1 billion in the company and pushed it to separate those businesses.
On Tuesday, Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler said the partnership with Apollo and Elliott would help “facilitate the next stages of Western Digital’s strategic review.”
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“We look forward to working together in advancing our goal of creating value and finalizing the best possible strategic outcome for our shareholders,” said Goeckeler.
The latest investment is a precursor to a potential merger between Silicon Valley-based Western Digital and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings Corp, according to people familiar with the matter. The sources, who requested anonymity as these discussions are confidential, said the talks between Western Digital and Kioxia are still active.
The two companies were in merger talks in 2021 before the negotiations cooled off.
Bloomberg reported on the talks between Western Digital and Kioxia earlier.
Western Digital and Kioxia jointly produce NAND chips, which are widely used in smartphones, TVs, data center servers and public announcement display panels.
Western Digital’s shares fell nearly 7% in trading after market hours.
Qatalyst Partners, Lazard and J.P. Morgan are serving as Western Digital’s financial advisers and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is serving as Western Digital’s legal adviser. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is serving as the Apollo funds’ legal adviser, while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is serving as Elliott’s legal adviser.
Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Anirban Sen and Lincoln Feast
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WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – U.S. labor costs increased at their slowest pace in a year in the fourth quarter as wage growth slowed, giving the Federal Reserve a boost in its fight against inflation.
There was more encouraging news on inflation, with other data on Tuesday showing house price growth slowing considerably in November. The reports were published as Fed officials began a two-day policy meeting. The U.S. central bank is expected to raise its policy rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday, further scaling back the pace of its interest rate increases.
“The Fed’s rate hikes in 2022 were successful at cooling an overheated economy,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Dallas. “But policymakers want to see a wider margin of slack open up to be confident that the slower inflation in late 2022 becomes the trend.”
The Employment Cost Index, the broadest measure of labor costs, rose 1.0% last quarter, the Labor Department said. That was the smallest advance since the fourth quarter of 2021 and followed a 1.2% gain in the July-September period.
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Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the ECI would rise 1.1%. Labor costs increased 5.1% on a year-on-year basis after climbing 5.0% in the third quarter. They remain higher than the 3.5% that Fed officials and economists view as consistent with tame inflation. The Fed has a 2% inflation target.
The ECI is viewed by policymakers as one of the better measures of labor market slack and a predictor of core inflation because it adjusts for composition and job-quality changes.
The Fed last year raised its policy rate by 425 basis points from a near-zero level to a 4.25%-4.50% range, the highest since late 2007. Though the central bank has shifted to smaller rate increases, it is unlikely to stop tightening monetary policy.
The Fed’s “Beige Book” report this month described the labor market as “persistently tight,” noting that “wage pressures remained elevated across districts” in early January, though five regional “Reserve Banks reported that these pressures had eased somewhat.”
While annual growth in average hourly earnings in the Labor Department’s monthly employment report has cooled, wages remain high. The Atlanta Fed’s wage tracker also moderated, but stayed elevated in the fourth quarter.
Labor market tightness was underscored by a separate Conference Board report showing its consumer survey’s so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get, increased to 36.9 in January from 34.5 in December.
This measure correlates to the unemployment rate from the Labor Department, and the rise was consistent with tight labor market conditions. The government will on Wednesday publish job openings data for December. There were 10.5 million job openings on the last business day of November.
Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were mixed.
HOUSE PRICES COOLING
“Easing labor cost growth should not be conflated with benign labor cost growth,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The labor market remains incredibly tight. While the deceleration in labor costs is a welcome development, it is too soon to declare that it will stay there for the long haul.”
Wages and salaries increased 1.0% in the last quarter, also the smallest gain since the fourth quarter of 2021, after rising 1.3% in the third quarter. They were up 5.1% on a year-on-year basis after rising by the same margin in the prior quarter.
Private-sector wages rose 1.0%, slowing from a 1.2% advance in the third quarter. Private industry wages increased 5.1% on a year-on-year basis after rising 5.2% in the July-September quarter.
The moderation in wage growth was more pronounced in the leisure and hospitality sector, where wages and salaries gained 0.9% after increasing 1.8% in the third quarter. Employment in this industry remains below pre-pandemic levels.
But wages in the financial activities industry shot up as did those in wholesale trade. Construction wages rose solidly.
State and local government wages climbed 1.0% last quarter after surging 2.1% in the third quarter.
Higher inflation, however, continued to eat into consumers’ purchasing power. Inflation-adjusted wages for all workers fell 1.2% on a year-on-year basis in the fourth quarter.
Benefits rose 0.8% last quarter after increasing 1.0% in the third quarter. They were up 4.9% on a year-on-year basis.
The Fed’s rate-hiking cycle, the fastest since the 1980s, is dampening house price inflation. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, increased 9.2% on a year-on-year basis in November, pulling back from October’s 10.7% gain.
House prices measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency rose 8.2% in the 12 months through November after climbing 9.8% in October. A persistent shortage of homes for sale is, however, likely to prevent a sharp decline in house prices.
“A dearth of inventory, no forced selling and the back-off in mortgage rates are helping to contain the fallout,” said Robert Kavcic, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
Despite consumers’ upbeat views of the labor market, they remained gripped by fears of a recession over the next six months, with many adopting a wait-and-see attitude toward big-ticket purchases. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 107.1 this month from 109.0 in December.
Consumers’ 12-month inflation expectations rose to 6.8% from 6.6% last month.
“We project that a moderate recession will take hold by mid-year, although the downside for this downturn should be limited by solid financial fundamentals for most households and businesses,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide in Columbus, Ohio.
Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci
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SYDNEY, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Australia’s house prices extended declines for the ninth straight month in January amid high mortgage rates, a drag on household wealth that will further erode consumer spending and add to economic stress.
Figures from property consultant CoreLogic on Wednesday showed prices nationally fell 1.0% in January from December, when values dropped 1.1%.
Prices were down 7.2% from a year earlier. They were also 8.9% lower from their April peak, making last month the largest and fastest decline in values since at least 1980 as the Reserve Bank of Australia embarked on the most aggressive tightening campaign in modern history.
The monthly fall was led by Sydney where prices slid 1.2% in the month to be down 13.8% on the year, while Melbourne dropped 1.1% on the month and 9.3% on a year earlier.
Prices across the combined capital cities fell 1.1% in the month, while outlying regions – which have performed better in this housing downturn – lost 0.8%.
Tim Lawless, research director at CoreLogic, does not expect listing and purchasing activity would return to average levels until consumer sentiment starts to improve, after prices suffered the biggest fall since 2008 last year.
New listings in capital cities in January were 22.2% lower than over the same period last year, implying that most home owners seem to be prepared to wait this downturn out.
“Until Australians have a higher level of confidence with regards to their household finances and the outlook for the economy, it’s likely they will continue to delay major financial decisions,” Lawless said.
The RBA has lifted rates by 300 basis points to a 10-year high of 3.1% to curb red-hot inflation. Investors are wagering rates would rise by another 25 basis points next week when the Board meets for the first time this year. ‘
Consumers are already feeling the pinch from rising borrowing costs and sky high inflation, with December retail sales tumbling the most in more than two years, in a warning for the economy.
Reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong
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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Elevance Health Inc (ELV.N) said on Wednesday that the growth in the insurer’s commercial business is expected to keep concerns over attrition in Medicaid membership at bay, even as it forecast a weak 2023 adjusted profit.
Shares of the company rose nearly 5% as investors bet on improving margins and revenues at the commercial segment, through which it sells private insurance plans to employer groups and individuals.
The segment, which reported a profit of $260 million in the quarter, is expected to bounce back this year after its profit halved due to a hit from the pandemic.
Along with an “attractive” membership increase for its commercial plans, Stephens analyst Scott Fidel said margin improvement will also aid the insurer’s earnings in 2023.
This will likely help Elevance counter a hit to its Medicaid membership enrollments from the expected removal of pandemic-related relief measures later this year.
Several members who signed up under the COVID-19 relief measures to the government-aided insurance Medicaid plans will be deemed ineligible, beginning April 1, and will move to private or employer-backed plans.
Elevance, which was previously known as Anthem, expects total medical membership at 2023 end to range from 47.4 million to 48.5 million. Of these, total commercial memberships are expected to be between 32 million and 32.5 million.
“We anticipate growth in individual and group risk-based commercial membership… to be concentrated in the second half as consumers transition from Medicaid to commercial coverage,” Elevance’s finance chief John Gallina said on a conference call.
For the full year, Elevance expects to post more than $32.60 in adjusted profit per share, below estimates of $32.67 per share.
Elevance reported a higher-than-expected profit of $5.23 per share for the fourth quarter.
Reporting by Khushi Mandowara and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber
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LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Barclays (BARC.L) has appointed former Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) dealmaker Cathal Deasy as co-head of investment banking, the lender said on Tuesday, as Chief Executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan seeks to grow the business and plan for succession.
Deasy will work alongside Taylor Wright, the co-head of global capital markets, the British bank said.
The changes were part of the bank “fostering the next generation of leadership and thinking,” Venkatakrishnan, known internally as Venkat, said in a memo about the moves that was seen by Reuters.
Venkat is being treated for a form of cancer known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, he said in November, adding that doctors are optimistic about his prognosis and that he would continue to be involved in the running of the bank.
Deasy left Credit Suisse a few weeks ago, just months after being promoted to regional co-head of its investment banking & capital markets (IBCM) unit.
At Credit Suisse, he managed some of the bank’s biggest client relationships in Europe, having spent nine years beforehand at Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), according to the internal Barclays memo.
JF Astier and John Miller, who currently lead investment banking, are in “active dialogue” with Barclays about what roles they might now take, a Barclays spokesperson said.
Astier and Miller were promoted in 2021 to lead investment banking as part of a new management team.
Barclays’ investment bank has had a strong performance in recent quarters, thanks in part to a boom in fixed income trading, which has traditionally been one of its core strengths.
Recent results have been blighted however by a trading blunder last year that saw Barclays agree a penalty of $361 million with U.S. regulators for what they described as “staggering” failures that led the bank to oversell nearly $18 billion worth of investment products.
Reporting by Baranjot Kaur in Bengaluru and Lawrence White in London; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Bill Berkrot
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LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Liberty Media-owned Formula One has accused FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem of interfering with its commercial rights by publicly questioning a reported $20 billion valuation of the sport.
Ben Sulayem, an Emirati elected in 2021 to the top job at Formula One’s governing body, took to Twitter on Monday after Bloomberg reported Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) explored a bid for more than that amount.
“As the custodians of motorsport, the FIA, as a non-profit organisation, is cautious about alleged inflated price tags of $20bn being put on F1,” Ben Sulayem said on his personal account.
“Any potential buyer is advised to apply common sense, consider the greater good of the sport and come with a clear, sustainable plan — not just a lot of money.”
He suggested the FIA had a duty to consider the possible negative impact on fans and promoters, who might have to pay more.
The comments followed his support this month for Michael Andretti’s bid to enter an 11th team on the grid — a move most existing teams are resistant to because of the dilution of revenues.
They also fuel the sense of an emerging turf war between the governing body and a commercial rights holder eager to grow an expanding and increasingly popular championship in new directions.
Sky Sports News reported that Formula One’s legal head Sacha Woodward Hill and Liberty Media counterpart Renee Wilm had sent a joint letter to the FIA accusing the governing body of exceeding its remit.
The FIA ultimately owns the rights to the championship but signed them over to former supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management in a 100-year deal in 2001 as part of a separation of commercial and regulatory activities.
“The FIA has given unequivocal undertakings that it will not do anything to prejudice the ownership, management and/or exploitation of those rights,” Sky quoted Formula One’s letter as saying.
“We consider that those comments, made from the FIA president’s official social media account, interfere with those rights in an unacceptable manner.”
The letter, sent to the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, said the comments risked exposure to “serious regulatory consequences” and the FIA could also be liable.
“Any individual or organisation commenting on the value of a listed entity or its subsidiaries, especially claiming or implying possession of inside knowledge while doing so, risks causing substantial damage to the shareholders and investors of that entity,” they said.
Sources confirmed to Reuters that the details were correct and teams received copies of the letter on Tuesday from F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali.
There was no comment from Formula One and no immediate response from the FIA.
Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge
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NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s (GS.N) asset management arm will significantly reduce the $59 billion of alternative investments that weighed on the bank’s earnings, an executive told Reuters.
The Wall Street giant plans to divest its positions over the next few years and replace some of those funds on its balance sheet with outside capital, Julian Salisbury, chief investment officer of asset and wealth management at Goldman Sachs, told Reuters in an interview.
“I would expect to see a meaningful decline from the current levels,” Salisbury said. “It’s not going to zero because we will continue to invest in and alongside funds, as opposed to individual deals on the balance sheet.”
Goldman had a dismal fourth quarter, missing Wall Street profit targets by a wide margin. Like other banks struggling as company dealmaking stalls, Goldman is letting go of more than 3,000 employees in its biggest round of job cuts since the 2008 financial crisis.
The bank will provide further details on its asset plan during Goldman Sachs’ investor day on Feb. 28, he said. Alternative assets can include private equity or real estate as opposed to traditional investments such as stocks and bonds.
EARNINGS VOLATILITY
Slimming down the investments on a bank’s balance sheet can reduce volatility in its earnings, said Mark Narron, senior director of North American banks at credit rating agency Fitch Ratings. Shedding investments also cuts the amount of so-called risk-weighted assets that are used by regulators to determine the amount of capital a bank must hold, he said.
Goldman Sachs’ asset and wealth management posted a 39% decline in net revenue to $13.4 billion in 2022, with its revenue from equity and debt investments sinking 93% and 63%, respectively, according to its earnings announced last week.
The $59 billion of alternative investments held on the balance sheet fell from $68 billion a year earlier, the results showed. The positions included $15 billion in equity investments, $19 billion in loans and $12 billion in debt securities, alongside other investments.
“Obviously, the environment for exiting assets was much slower in the back half of the year, which meant we were able to realize less gains on the portfolio compared to 2021,” Salisbury said.
If the environment improves for asset sales, Salisbury said he expected to see “a faster decline in the legacy balance sheet investments.”
“If we would have a couple of normalized years, you’d see the reduction happening,” in that period, he said.
PRIVATE CREDIT
Clients are showing keen interest in private credit given sluggish capital markets, Salisbury said.
“Private credit is interesting to people because the returns available are attractive,” he said. “Investors like the idea of owning something a little more defensive but high yielding in the current economic environment.”
Goldman Sachs’ asset management arm closed a $15.2 billion fund earlier this month to make junior debt investments in private equity-backed businesses.
Private credit assets across the industry have more than doubled to over $1 trillion since 2015, according to data provider Preqin.
Investors are also showing interest in private equity funds and are looking to buy positions in the secondary market when existing investors sell their stakes, Salisbury said.
The U.S. investment-grade primary bond market kicked off 2023 with a flurry of new deals.
The market rally has “more legs” because investors are willing to buy bonds with longer maturities while seeking higher credit quality because of the uncertain economic environment, he said.
Goldman Sachs economists expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by 25 basis points each in February, March and May, then holding steady for the rest of the year, Salisbury said.
More broadly, the “chilling effect” of last year’s rate hikes is starting to cool economic activity, Salisbury said, citing softer hiring activity and slowing growth in rents.
Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Megan Davies, Lananh Nguyen and Lisa Shumaker
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WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – U.S. existing home sales plunged to a 12-year low in December, but declining mortgage rates raised cautious optimism that the embattled housing market could be close to finding a floor.
The report from the National Association of Realtors on Friday also showed the median house price increasing at the slowest pace since early in the COVID-19 pandemic as sellers in some parts of the country resorted to offering discounts.
The Federal Reserve’s fastest interest rate-hiking cycle since the 1980s has pushed housing into recession.
“Existing home sales are somewhat lagging,” said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital in New York. “The decline in mortgage rates could help undergird housing activity in the months ahead.”
Existing home sales, which are counted when a contract is closed, fell 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units last month, the lowest level since November 2010. That marked the 11th straight monthly decline in sales, the longest such stretch since 1999.
Sales dropped in the Northeast, South and Midwest. They were unchanged in the West. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home sales falling to a rate of 3.96 million units. December’s data likely reflected contracts signed some two months earlier.
Home resales, which account for a big chunk of U.S. housing sales, tumbled 34.0% on a year-on-year basis in December. They fell 17.8% to 5.03 million units in 2022, the lowest annual total since 2014 and the sharpest annual decline since 2008.
The continued slump in sales, which meant less in broker commissions, was the latest indication that residential investment probably contracted in the fourth quarter, the seventh straight quarterly decline.
This would be the longest such streak since the collapse of the housing bubble triggered the Great Recession.
While a survey from the National Association of Home Builders this week showed confidence among single-family homebuilders improving in January, morale remained depressed.
Single-family homebuilding rebounded in December, but permits for future construction dropped to more than a 2-1/2- year low, and outside the pandemic plunge, they were the lowest since February 2016.
Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell.
MORTGAGE RATES RETREATING
The worst of the housing market rout is, however, probably behind. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate retreated to an average 6.15% this week, the lowest level since mid-September, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.
The rate was down from 6.33% in the prior week and has declined from an average of 7.08% early in the fourth quarter, which was the highest since 2002. It, however, remains well above the 3.56% average during the same period last year.
The median existing house price increased 2.3% from a year earlier to $366,900 in December, with NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun noting that “markets in roughly half of the country are likely to offer potential buyers discounted prices compared to last year.”
The smallest price gain since May 2020, together with the pullback in mortgage rates, could help to improve affordability down the road, though much would depend on supply. Applications for loans to buy a home have increased so far this year, a sign that there are eager buyers waiting in the wings.
House prices increased 10.2% in 2022, boosted by an acute shortage of homes for sale. Housing inventory totaled 970,000 units last year. While that was an increase from the 880,000 units in 2021, supply was the second lowest on record.
“Home price growth is likely to continue to decelerate and we look for it to turn negative in 2023,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, a U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. “The limited supply of homes for sale will prevent a steep decline.”
In December, there were 970,000 previously owned homes on the market, down 13.4% from November but up 10.2% from a year ago. At December’s sales pace, it would take 2.9 months to exhaust the current inventory of existing homes, up from 1.7 months a year ago. That is considerably lower than the 9.6 months of supply at the start of the 2007-2009 recession.
Though tight inventory remains an obstacle for buyers, the absence of excess supply means the housing market is unlikely to experience the dramatic collapse witnessed during the Great Recession.
A four-to-seven-month supply is viewed as a healthy balance between supply and demand. Properties typically remained on the market for 26 days last month, up from 24 days in November.
Fifty-seven percent of homes sold in December were on the market for less than a month. First-time buyers accounted for 31% of sales, up from 30% a year ago. All-cash sales made up 28% of transactions compared to 23% a year ago. Distressed sales, foreclosures and short sales were only 1% of sales in December.
“While the stabilization of affordability will be good news for potential home buyers, a lack of available inventory could remain a constraint for home buying activity,” said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.
Reporting by Lucia Mutikani;
Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.