May 21, 2012 (Chris Moore)
Home sales climbed again last week, matching the previous week’s gains, while home prices posted a solid gain after remaining flat for the previous two weeks according to the weekly National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.
There were 183,735 properties sold over the previous thirty-day rolling period ending May 17th, up 1.4 percent from the previous week’s total of 181,276 sold properties and 8.1 percent higher than the 169,999 properties sold four weeks ago.
Sales volume is still down 3.9 percent from the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales which occurred during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st. At the current pace, sales could pass last summer’s peak in the beginning of June.
Last week’s home sales volume was 3.4 percent higher than the 177,703 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 10.0 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 167,011 homes were sold.
The median price of a home sold over the current thirty-day rolling period increased by $2,500 from last week to $182,500 and was 3.4 percent higher than what it was four weeks ago when the median sales price was $176,500.
Home prices were also 4.3 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $174,500 and were 2.8 percent higher than what they were three years ago when the median price was $178,000. It was the sixth consecutive week that year-over-year home prices surpassed the previous year’s levels.
Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to a low of $168,500.
Home sales volume over the last five years has ranged from a high of 339,669 properties sold to a low of 124,051.
The National Home Sales Snapshot includes 98 out of the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas covering 66.25 percent of U.S. home sales.
Tags: DataQuick, home sales, median home price, sales volume
Source:
DataQuick
