Existing home sales for September are predicted to fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.23 and 5.57 million annual sales, with a targeted number of 5.4 million, Auction.com’s Real Estate Nowcast said.

This would be up 1.7% from August and 5.9% from a year ago.

In the most recent report from National Association of Realtors, total existing home sales, which are completed transactions that include single–family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co–ops, fell 4.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.31 million in August.

This was the second largest decline in more than four years.

The Nowcast report explained that while the modest growth predicted for September will not be enough to completely recoup all of the losses experienced in August, sales are expected to move back in the right direction and maintain solid year-over-year progress.

“While we reported signs last month that the housing market was cooling off, no one anticipated the kind of decline in sales volume that we saw in August,” said Auction.com Executive Vice President Rick Sharga.

As for why, Sharga explained, “Some of this could be due to the severe volatility we saw in the stock market, some could be less activity from foreign buyers due to economic issues in Europe and China, and some could be the result of job losses in oil-producing states. Since month-to-month sales numbers can vary significantly, this could turn out to be nothing more than a temporary blip on the radar, but it's certainly worth watching.”