April 9, 2012 (Chris Moore)
Weekly existing home sales volume improved for the fourth consecutive week, improving by over ten percent during that time span, while home prices also continued their upward march, finally surpassing the previous year’s prices according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.
There were 157,452 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending April 5th, up 3.5 percent from the previous week’s total of 152,197 properties sold and 10.7 percent higher than the 142,279 properties sold four weeks ago.
Sales volume is still down 17.5 percent from the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales which occurred during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st.
Last week’s home sales volume was 5.5 percent higher than the 149,260 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 13.3 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 138,979 homes were sold.
The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period also improved for the fourth consecutive week, increasing by $1,500 from the previous week to $174,000 and is at its highest level since the beginning of February. Home prices are up 3.7 percent from a month ago.
Home prices were 0.3 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $173,500 but were still 3.3 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 within the thirty day rolling periods 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