Existing home sales rise in February

Posted Mar 23rd 2009 10:55AM by Mark Fightmaster
Filed under: Housing

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), sales of pre-owned homes increased 5.1% in February -- bringing the seasonally adjusted annual rate to 4.72 million units in February. The NAR attributed the growth to "deep price discounts." The percentage gain was the largest since July 2003, but sales are still down 4.6% during the past 52 weeks.

A survey by MarketWatch showed expectations for a decline to 4.45 million from January's 4.49 million rate. In the past year, the median sales price for homes fell 15.5% to $165,400 -- logging the second largest year-over-year price drop ever. The largest year-over-year price drop logged was January's drop of 17.5%. The inventory of unsold homes increased 5.2% to 3.80 million, which is a 9.7-month supply at February's sales pace. More often than not, inventories increase 5% in February -- but such data is not adjusted for seasonality.

Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the NAR noted that the sales increase is "obviously good news for the industry and the economy," although sales were "very soft." Yun believes that the stimulus package will boost sales by roughly 1 million this year, because the package includes an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.

All four regions tracked saw an increase, with sales of foreclosed properties or short sales making up 45% of the total sales. Compared to a year ago, sales of single-family homes and condos increased 15.6% in the Northeast, 1% in the Midwest, 6.1% in the South, and 2.6% in the West.

Tags: home sales, HomeSales, housing data, HousingData, inthenews, national association of realtors, NationalAssociationOfRealtors

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-23-2009 @ 7:44PM

audie.chamberlain said...

Over half of those planning to buy in 2009 are first-time homebuyers(53.5%), according to a new survey commissioned by Move.inc
http://tinyurl.com/dfurmr

Audie Chamberlain
@movetrends on twitter