CLICK HERE to view this graphic at full size. / " title="CLICK HERE to view this graphic at full size. /"/>WASHINGTON – Existing home sales fell last month nationwide and in the Northeast but remained above their lows earlier this year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Prices, however, fell sharply compared with a year ago, dragged down by foreclosure and other distressed-property sales.
U.S. sales of existing single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums and co-op units fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million units per year, the NAR said. Although well above June’s 4.86 million units per year, the October sales pace represented a 1.3-percent decline from the year-ago level of 5.06 million units per year, a 3.1-percent decline from the revised September pace of 5.14 million per year and a 33-percent decline from September 2005’s record high. By comparison, for all of 2007, the NAR recorded 5.65 million resales nationwide.
Analysts had expected existing-home sales would fall to 5 million per year, based on the median forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 67 economists. “Home sales will continue to fall over the next few months because of tightening credit conditions,” Sal Guatieri, senior economist in Toronto at BMO Capital Markets, told Bloomberg, adding: “Underlying demand appears very weak [because] many sales are coming from cheap prices on foreclosed properties.”
Sales fell compared with September in every region, the NAR said. The smallest decline was in the Northeast, where existing-home sales fell 1.2 percent to an annual pace of 830,000; elsewhere, sales fell 1.6 percent in the West, 3.2 percent in the South and 6 percent in the Midwest.
Compared with a year ago, sales fell in every region but the West, where they surged 37.5 percent. But even with the overall decline, Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist, listed a number of areas with solid year-over-year increases in sales, including many California and Florida markets plus Boston, Minneapolis and Denver.
“Many potential home buyers appear to have withdrawn from the market due to the stock market collapse and deteriorating economic conditions,” Yun said in a statement. But, “where prices have plunged, the buyers are coming back and taking advantage.”
The nation’s total housing inventory fell 0.9 percent compared with September to 4.23 million existing homes available at the end of last month. At the current pace of sales, that represented a 10.2-month supply.
Meanwhile, the median price of existing homes sold last month fell to $183,300, falling a record 11.3 percent compared with October 2007’s $206,700, the NAR found. The median price in the Northeast was $241,700, down 9.8 percent from October 2007. Nationwide, “there remains a significant downward distortion in the current price from a large number of distress sales at discounted prices,” the trade group noted.
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, including the full Existing Home Sales report, is available at www.realtor.org.
