Tag Archives: National Association of Realtors

The thin shadow inventory compared with rising home values has caused the share of distressed home sales to drop to single digits. Since there will be fewer properties sold at deep discounts, this will cause home prices to strengthen, Yun said. "It also means that those practitioners who specialize in foreclosures or short-sales need to start thinking about a change in business models to normal home buyers and normal positive-equity home sellers," Yun wrote on the blog.

Sharga also noted that while the 5.31 million target number for April is up both month-over-month and year-over-year, a truly healthy housing market would be on a pace for about six million in existing home sales annually. He said the annual rate of existing home sales will probably continue at about the five million range for the next year.

"This is a positive sign heading into the spring homebuying season," Freddie Mac wrote on its blog. "This also shows positive momentum in general for the housing market, since this is the fourth consecutive month pending home sales have been up."

The NAR’s latest look at existing-home sales shows that while sales nationally were 3.2 percent higher this January than last, single-family transactions were down almost 5 percent to 4.82 million. This is the lowest since last April’s 4.75 million.

A new forecast of existing-home sales for the month of December has projected activity rising but still finishing the year on a low note after a weaker than expected November. In its latest Nowcast projections, online real estate auction company Auction.com calls for pre-owned home sales to fall between seasonally adjusted annual rates of 4.79 and 5.18 million for December, with a targeted number of 4.98 million.

Sales of pre-owned homes stalled out in November, plunging to their slowest pace in half a year only one month after hitting a 2014 high. Despite the stumble, home resales in November were still up 2.1 percent from year-ago levels, making it just the second month in 2014 to see sales rise year-over-year. It's been a year of starts and stops for home sales, which have struggled under the weight of rising mortgage rates (a trend that has reversed in recent months), a tighter lending environment, declining affordability, and a lack of housing stock available for buyers.

The figures for both sales and median price for existing homes in October were higher than the "10-year October average," or the average of that data from the previous 10 Octobers, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Pending home sales declined month-to-month in October but remained higher than they were a year ago, according to the latest Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

As the share of first-time homebuyers hovers at its lowest level in nearly three decades, real estate professionals remain optimistic that homeownership is due for a comeback.

The number of listings last month was approximately 1.87 million, down 2.7 percent annually and 7.9 percent monthly. The decline compares to Redfin's latest analysis, which showed an unexpected bump in inventory from new listings. Redfin's data measures a narrower list of markets nationwide.