The numbers: Existing-home sales ran at a 5.38 million seasonally-adjusted annual rate in June, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. That matched the MarketWatch consensus estimate.

What happened: With fewer homes available for purchase, there’s little path up for sales. June marked the third consecutive month in which sales declined. It was the lowest selling rate since January, and was 2.2% lower than a year ago.

At the current pace of sales, it would take 4.3 months to exhaust available inventory, well below the six months that’s generally considered a signal of a balanced, healthy market. Homes were on the market for an average 26 days in June.

Big picture: With such lean inventory, prices are getting bid up. The median price of a home sold in June was $276,900, a fresh all-time high, and 5.2% higher than in June 2017. Higher prices—along with somewhat higher mortgage rates—are handicapping less aggressive buyers. First-timers made up 31% of all transactions in June, roughly the same level they’ve been stuck at throughout the recovery, and well below the 40% share they generally enjoyed before the housing crisis a decade ago.

Total housing inventory actually rose in June, by 4.3%, marking the first yearly increase in three years. Still, as NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun put it, “the current level is far from what’s needed to satisfy demand.” What’s more, he said, “it remains to be seen if this modest increase will stick, given the fact that the robust economy is bringing more interested buyers into the market, and new-home construction is failing to keep up.”

As always, sales were very mixed regionally. They rose 5.9% in the Northeast and 0.8% in the Midwest, but declined 2.2% in the South and 2.6% in the West.

Read: We’re probably at peak housing. Here’s what that means.

What they’re saying: “If there is some good news it’s that inventory seems to have reached a floor and has been mostly stable since the end of 2017,” said Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist for Zillow. “Still, even though inventory has bottomed out, it isn’t yet climbing back up toward more normal levels—and overall numbers mask a big divide between the top and bottom of the markets. Builders are focused largely at the top of the market, and buyers at the highest price points may find things slowly shifting in their favor over the next few months. But the market remains very competitive for entry-level homes.”

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