February 21, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Weekly existing home sales volume posted its first gain in six weeks while home prices continued to slide, reaching its five-year cycle low last seen in June of 2009, according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 144,914 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending February 16th, up 1.3 percent from the previous week’s total of 143,021 properties sold but 7.6 percent lower than the 156,817 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume is down 24.1 percent from the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales during the week prior to September 1st.

Last week’s home sales volume was 0.5 percent higher than the 144,194 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 9.0 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 132,581 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period ending February 16th fell $1,000 from the previous week to $171,000 and is down 4.7 percent from a month ago. Last week’s median home price matched the current five-year cycle low which was last seen in June 2009.

Home prices were also 2.3 percent lower than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $175,000 and were 8.3 percent lower than the same period three years ago when the median price was $186,500.

Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to a low of $171,000.

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