By Dan Weil ‘The softness in home sales reflects this year’s escalating mortgage rates,’ says economist Lawrence Yun. The bad news for the housing market continues to mount. Existing-home sales fell for a seventh straight month in August, dropping 0.4% from July and 19.9% from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. The annualized sales pace was the lowest since May 2020, early in the pandemic. The median existing-home-sale price dropped for the second month in a row – to $389,500 in August, down 3.5% from $403,800 in July. The price hit a record peak of $413,800 in …