From Holden:

It’s the housing market you are hearing.

Sales of existing homes fell for the third time in the past five months in May, with the weakness led by a big drop in demand in the Northeast.

The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales of previously owned homes dropped by 1.2 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.67 million units.

The median price of the homes sold in May rose to $230,000 in May, up 6 percent from the same month a year ago. That represented a slowdown from huge double-digit price gains last year at the peak of the housing boom.

[snip]

Analysts said this is a classic pattern for a cooling housing market with sales starting to lag under the impact of rising mortgage rates.