March 19, 2012 (Chris Moore)
Weekly existing home sales volume improved slightly last week, but remained at about the same levels that have been observed since the beginning of February while home prices increased for the first time in ten weeks according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.
There were 144,419 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending March 15th, up 1.5 percent from the previous week’s total of 142,279 properties sold but still 0.3 percent lower than the 144,914 properties sold four weeks ago.
Sales volume is down 24.4 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 3.5 percent higher than the 139,507 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 9.9 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 131,362 homes were sold.
The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period increased $1,420 from the previous week to $169,920 and is down 0.6 percent from a month ago. It was the first increase in the median sales price since January 5th, when a very modest $50 increase was posted.
Home prices were 1.8 percent lower than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $173,000 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
