For-sale listings got a boost in March but found fewer buyers as high mortgage rates kept their chokehold on the housing market.

The number of homes for sale rose for a third month in a row, to 1.11 million from 1.06 million in February, reaching the most since November, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. However, the slight uptick in inventory wasn’t enough to spur sales, which fell 4.3% from February.

The new data showed the market is st🔜ill being stifled by high mortgage rates. With the average rate for a 30-year mortgage nearing 7% last week, homeowners remain reluctant to sell and give up mortgages they locked in years ago when rates were low. Although the number of homes for sale was up 14% from a year ago, they were well below the 1.7 million typically on sale that month pre-pandemic. 

First-time buyers have been sidelined by record prices and high rates, which have combined to make monthly mortgage payments compared to typical incomes the least affordable since the 1980s.

“Though rebounding from cyclical lows, home sales are stuck🐽 because inte🐭rest rates have not made any major moves,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the association, said in a press release. 

Mortgage rates are heavily influenced by the Federal Reserve’s fed funds rate, as well as financial markets’ expectations of that rate. The Fed has kept the key interest rate high to stifle inflation. Hopes for a rate cut in June have diminished because recent data on inflation showed 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:co🅠nsumer prices have been rising faster than expected.

While sales figures have been wavering up and down in aᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ holding pattern in recent months, prices have consistently risen. The median home sold for $393,500, the highest price ever for March and an increase of 4.8% from the same month in 2023. 

The recent trends in the🐠 housing market—rising prices and falling affordability—are unlikely to change until more houses a💮re built or put on sale, Yun said. 

“We need more inventory, definitely, for the health of the market,” Yun said in a conference call with reporters.