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Existing Home Sales Down, but Prices Stabilize
Existing home sales decreased in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.48 million units, 2.6 percent below the February pace which was adjusted up to 4.60 million units from the original estimate of 4.59 million. The March rate is 5.2 percent higher than the 4.26 million unit rate of sales in March 2011.</p
The figures were released this morning by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) which defines existing home sales as completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and cooperative apartments. NAR pointed out that while sales were down, inventory tightened and home prices are showing further signs of stabilizing.</p
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the recovery is in the process of settling into a higher level of home sales. “The recovery is happening though not at a breakout pace, but we have seen nine consecutive months of year-over-year sales increases,” he said. “Existing-home sales are moving up and down in a fairly narrow range that is well above the level of activity during the first half of last year. With job growth, low interest rates, bargain home prices and an improving economy, the pent-up demand is coming to market and we expect housing to be notably better this year.”</p
Sales of existing homes took a sudden jump in January but have trended down since then on a seasonally adjusted basis. Still, as NAR points out, there has been fairly steady attrition in the inventory of homes for sale which now stands at a 6.3 month supply of 2.37 million homes down 1.3 percent from 2.4 million in February and 21.8 percent below the 3.03 million unit inventory, an 8.5 month supply, one year earlier. </p
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