Home Depot Notches $35.72B Sales From Nov. 2021 To Jan. 2022

Home Depot saw its sales remain strong in its fourth quarter as it continues to benefit from a sizzling housing market, Michelle Chapman reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Home Depot continues to reap the benefits from sizzling housing market numbers.

Sales for the three months ended Jan. 30 rose to $35.72 billion from $32.26 billion. This beat the $34.88 billion that analysts polled by FactSet forecast. Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, climbed 8.1%. In the US, the metric increased 7.6%.

Home improvement stores have been busy during the pandemic as people working from home took on new projects. Many also moved into new homes with more space for a home office.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose in January as a surge in buyers with cash and others eager to avoid higher mortgage rates snapped up properties, leaving the number of available houses on the market at a record low.

Existing home sales rose 6.7% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.5 million, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. That’s more than the roughly 6.08 million sales that economists had been expecting, according to FactSet.

A day earlier, mortgage buyer, Freddie Mac reported that the average rate on a 30-year loan reached 3.92%, up from 3.69% the previous week. The last time the 30-year rate was higher was in May of 2019 when it reached 3.99%. Home Depot Inc. earned $3.35 billion, or $3.21 per share, in the fourth quarter. A year ago it earned $2.86 billion, or $2.65 per share.

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