U.S. existing home sales fell in July for the sixth straight month, the longest streak of declines in more than eight years, as higher mortgage rates and a shortage of homes for sale are cooling this once red-hot market.

The average sale price per acre for American land in the second quarter of 2022 was $18,083, doubling over the last two years.

This year, the sales-volume growth rate has been falling as rising inflation has pushed interest rates higher. In the second quarter, investors purchased $190.3 billion of commercial property, an increase of 17% over the same period in 2021 but down from a 150% sales-volume increase in the second quarter of 2021.

Real-estate closings can now take place remotely in most states, with 43 states having laws permanently allowing remote online notarization up from 22 at the outset of the pandemic.

The red-hot rental market is starting to cool. Average apartment rents rose 9.4% in the second quarter of 2022 compared with the same quarter in 2021, down from the more than 11% annual increases seen the previous two quarters.

Embattled property developer China Evergrande Group was told to honor a $1.1 billion guarantee, revealing yet another large financial obligation that wasn’t previously disclosed. Evergrande said one of its subsidiaries in China had provided counter guarantees to an unnamed entity by pledging its shares in Shengjing Bank Co., a regional lender.

The value of securities backed by real-estate loans issued by banks was $20.6 billion in the second quarter, down from $29 billion during the quarter prior.

The median existing home price hit another record in June, rising to $416,000, and sales declined for the fifth straight month as higher interest rates pushed more buyers out of the market.

Foreigners bought 98,600 U.S. homes in the year ended in March, down 7.9% from the prior year. That is the lowest level on record since NAR began collecting the data in 2009. But the dollar volume of residential real estate purchased by international buyers rose 8.5% to $59 billion, reflecting a large increase in U.S. home prices.

The average rental price in Manhattan was just above $5,000 last month, marking the first time that has happened in the history of New York City. The exact average was $5,058, or $82.18 a square foot, which is a 29% increase from the average rent of $3,922 at this time last year.