March 26, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Weekly existing home sales volume jumped to their highest level since the end of January last week, while home prices saw an improvement for the second consecutive week according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 147,458 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending March 22nd, up 2.1 percent from the previous week’s total of 144,419 properties sold and 2.2 percent higher than the 144,228 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume is down 22.8 percent from the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st.

Last week’s home sales volume was 4.3 percent higher than the 141,316 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 11.2 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 132,559 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period increased a modest $80 from the previous week to $170,000 and is at the same level that it was at a month ago. It was the second consecutive week the median price has improved following ten weeks of declines.

Home prices were 2.3 percent lower than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $173,920 and were 5.6 percent lower than the same period three years ago when the median price was $180,000.

Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to a low of $168,500.

Sales volume for a thirty day period within 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