May 29, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Home sales continued their upward march last week, ending less than two percent below last year’s peak, while home prices were higher than the previous year for the seventh consecutive week according to the weekly National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 187,362 properties sold over the previous thirty-day rolling period ending May 24th, up 2.0 percent from the previous week’s total of 183,735 sold properties and 7.5 percent higher than the 174,304 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume was only 1.9 percent below the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales which occurred during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st and at the current sales rate should pass last year’s peak either this week or next.

Last week’s home sales volume was 5.2 percent higher than the 178,175 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 10.8 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 169,112 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 $185,000 and was 3.4 percent higher than what it was four weeks ago when the median sales price was $179,900.

Home prices were also 5.7 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $175,000 and were 2.8 percent higher than what they were three years ago when the median price was $178,000. It was the seventh 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