March home resales beat economist’s estimatess of 2.5 percent and showing signs of recovery, according to the National Association of Realtors. Existing home sales increased 3.7 percent month over month to an annual rate of 5.10 million units.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, expects the improvement to continue. “Existing-home sales have risen in six of the past eight months, so we’re clearly on a recovery path,” he said.
“With rising jobs and excellent affordability conditions, we project moderate improvements into 2012, but not every month will show a gain – primarily because some buyers are finding it too difficult to obtain a mortgage.”
The median sales price for an existing home was $159,600, down 5.9 percent from the median price of $169,600 a year-ago.
The supply of existing homes on the market dropped to 8.4 months’ in March, down from 8.5 in February.
“Although home sales are coming back without a federal stimulus, sales would be notably stronger if mortgage lending would return to the normal, safe standards that were in place a decade ago – before the loose lending practices that created the unprecedented boom and bust cycle,” Yun explained.
According to Freddie Mac, the national average for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage decreased to 4.84 percent in March from 4.95 percent in February.