U.S. Existing Home Sales Sustain Upward Momentum In April

(RTTNews) - After reporting a significant rebound in U.S. existing home sales in the previous month, the National Association of Realtors released a report on Friday showing that sales sustained the upward momentum in the month of April.

NAR said existing home sales climbed 1.7 percent to an annual rate of 5.45 million in April after jumping 5.7 percent to an upwardly revised 5.36 million in March.

Economists had expected existing home sales to rise by about 1.3 percent to a rate of 5.40 million from the 5.33 million originally reported for the previous month.

"Primarily driven by a convincing jump in the Midwest, where home prices are most affordable, sales activity overall was at a healthy pace last month," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

Yun said very low mortgage rates and modest seasonal inventory gains encouraged more households to search for and close on a home.

The report said the median price for an existing home was $232,500 in April, up 5 percent from $221,500 in March and up 6.3 percent from $218,700 in the same month a year ago.

Housing inventory also jumped 9.2 percent to 2.14 million existing homes available for sale at the end of April compared to the 1.96 million homes for sale at the end of March.

However, NAR noted that the number of existing homes available for sale is down by 3.6 percent compared to 2.22 million a year ago.

The unsold inventory in April represents 4.7 months or supply at the current sales pace compared to 4.4 months in March and 5.2 months in April of 2015.

As Yun mention, existing home sales in the Midwest saw a substantial increase, surging up by 12.1 percent to a rate of 1.39 million.

Existing home sales in the Northeast also increased by 2.8 percent, while sales in the South and West fell by 2.7 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

The report also said single-family home sales edged up by 0.6 percent to a rate of 4.81 million, while existing condominium and co-op sales jumped 10.3 percent to a rate of 640,000.

Next Tuesday, the Commerce Department is scheduled to release its report on new home sales in the month of April.