December 10, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Sales of existing homes increased for the first time in five weeks, while home prices saw their first increase in three weeks according to the weekly National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 203,786 properties sold over the previous thirty-day rolling period ending December 6th, up 0.7 percent from the previous week’s total of 202,385 sold properties but 2.5 percent lower than the 208,997 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume was 8.1 percent lower than the current year’s cycle peak of 221,695 sales which occurred during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 13th and remained at the levels seen in mid-June.

Last week’s home sales volume was 16.3 percent higher than the 175,195 homes sold during the same period a year ago but was 5.3 percent lower than during the same period three years ago when 215,145 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the current thirty-day rolling period increased by $500 from the previous week to $195,500. It was only the second time in the last seven weeks that home values have increased, the last time being the week of November 22nd. Four weeks ago the median home price was $197,000.

Home prices were 8.6 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $180,000 and were 4.5 percent higher than what they were three years ago when the median price was $187,000. It was the 34th 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