Existing home sales rise in U.S., N.E.

WASHINGTON – Existing home sales rose last month nationwide and in the Northeast, although they continued to lag year-ago levels, according to a report today by the National Association of Realtors.
U.S. sales of existing single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums and co-op units rose 3.1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5 million units per year – the highest since February – from a June pace that was downwardly revised to 4.85 million units per year, or 0.82 percent beneath the survey’s April low (READ MORE). But it remained 13.2 percent below the 5.76 million units per year pace of July 2007, the NAR said.
Analysts had expected a more modest month-over-month rise – to 4.91 million units per year – based on the median forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 75 economists. (Their estimates of the July “resale” pace nationwide ranged from 4.69 million to 5 million units per year.)
The July pace of single-family sales nationwide was 4.39 million units per year, an increase of 3.1 percent compared with June but a decline of 12.4 percent from a year ago. Their median sale price was $210,900, down 7.7 percent from a year ago.
Last month’s rate of condo and co-op sales was 610,000 units per year, up 3.4 percent from June but down 18.6 percent from July 2007. Their median price fell 2.7 percent year over year to $223,400.
The nation’s total inventory of existing homes for sale rose to 4.67 million units at the end of July, an increase of 3.9 percent from the end of June and 2.4 percent from July 2007.
At the current pace of sales, that represented an 11.2-month supply, up 0.9 percent from the preceding month’s 11.1-month supply and 17.9 percent from July 2007’s 9.5-month supply. “The rise in supply results from a sharp increase in condo inventory,” the NAR report said. “The single-family supply declined.”
“Inventory remains high in many parts of the country and will require time to fully absorb,” Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement today. “We expect more balanced conditions in 2009 and will eventually return to normal long-term appreciation patterns.”
In the Northeast, sales of existing homes rose to an annual rate of 900,000 units per year in July. That represented a decline of 11.8 percent from the year-ago rate but an increase of 5.9 percent from the region’s June pace. Month-over-month gains also were seen in the the West (+9.7 percent) and the Midwest (+0.9 percent) but fell in the South (-0.5 percent); year-over-year declines were seen in every region.
The median price of existing homes sold in the Northeast last month was $278,700, 4.9 percent less than in July 2007. The median price of homes sold last month also fell compared with a year ago in the West (-22.2 percent) and the South (-3.5 percent), but rose in the Midwest (+1.0 percent).
In the months ahead, said NAR President Richard F. Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif., “we hope the new tools in the hands of home buyers, from the recently enacted housing stimulus package, will spark a sustained sales uptrend.”
Analysts were somewhat less positive. “It’ll be a while before we get a real recovery in housing. These things take time to work through,” Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, told Bloomberg News. But, he added, “prices have come off, so that’s helping home sales a little.”
The National Association of Realtors is the nation’s largest trade association, with more than 1.3 million members in all aspects of residential and commercial real estate. Additional information is available at www.realtor.org.