Existing-home sales dropped 2% in August to their slowest pace in more than a year as rising mortgage rates hurt already-slow demand.

Previously owned homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million in August, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. The result is the slowest pace since June 2025, which it tied, according to historic data.

The median home sales price rose 1.6% from one year prior to $429,100, while the number of homes on the market rose to 1.62 million units-the first time that count exceeded 1.6 million since November 2019, the trade group said.

"Mortgage rates and home sales move in opposite directions, so it's not surprising to see a mild dip in home buying activity due to high mortgage rates," Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors' chief economist, said in a statement.

While buyers have more options, high prices and financing costs create far from an ideal environment for both buyers and sellers. Take it from Opendoor Technologies, which buys and sells homes: "The last two weeks of August were among the worst we have seen for housing in years," CEO Kaz Nejatian said in a statement posted on the social-media website X and on Opendoor's website.

Mortgage rates have climbed toward 7% as long-term bonds yields move higher. Since the end of August, the 10-year Treasury yield, a barometer for mortgage rates, has risen further: the yield on Wednesday rose to 4.836%, the highest 3 p.m. yield since late October 2023.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates measured every weekday by Mortgage News Daily ended August at 6.87%, and rose to 6.97% on Wednesday.

It would take 4.9 months at August's sales pace to sell through every previously owned home on the market. That's the most time in over a decade, the trade group said.