Tight supply is keeping the pressure on prices. The median price of an existing home sold in August was $416,700, up 3.1% from the same month in 2023. That is the highest price ever for August.

British retail sales rose by a stronger-than-expected 1% in August and growth in July was revised up, official figures showed on Friday.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in August to the slowest annual pace in nearly a year even as mortgage rates eased and the supply of properties on the market continued to rise. Existing home sales fell 2.5% last month, from July, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.86 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.