Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
Home prices continued to show solid growth in most of the U.S. due to limited inventory conditions, but rising prices and severe winter weather caused existing-home sales to slip in February, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
Total existing-home sales declined 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.60 million in February from 4.62 million in January, and 7.1 percent below the 4.95 million-unit level in February 2013. February’s pace of sales was the lowest since July 2012, when it stood at 4.59 million.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said conditions in February were largely unchanged from January. “We had ongoing unusual weather disruptions across much of the country last month, with the continuing frictions of constrained inventory, restrictive mortgage lending standards and housing affordability less favorable than a year ago,” he said. “Some transactions are simply being delayed, so there should be some improvement in the months ahead. With an expected pickup in job creation, home sales should trend up modestly over the course of the year.”
The median existing-home price for all housing types in February was $189,000, which is 9.1 percent above February 2013. “Price gains have translated into an additional $4 trillion of housing wealth recovery over the past three years,” Yun added.
Total housing inventory at the end of February rose 6.4 percent to 2.00 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 5.2-month supply at the current sales pace, up from 4.9 months in January. Unsold inventory is 5.3 percent above a year ago, when there was a 4.6-month supply.
To read more click here.
