U.S. existing home sales dropped for the seventh straight month in August as affordability deteriorated further amid surging mortgage rates and stubbornly high house prices, though the pace of decline moderated from prior months.

The Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy tightening, marked by oversized interest rate increases, has significantly weakened the housing market. In contrast, other sectors of the economy, like the labor market, have shown incredible resilience despite the Fed’s attempts to cool demand.

“High prices and Fed rate hikes will likely remain constraints for sales going forward,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York.

Existing home sales slipped 0.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.80 million units last month, the National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday. Discounting the plunge during the spring of 2020 when the economy was reeling from the first wave of COVID-19, this was the lowest sales level since November 2015.