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Existing Home Sales Are Up. What Does it Mean?

  • June 20, 2013

by Shilpi Paul

Existing Home Sales Are Up. What Does it Mean?: Figure 1

On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales rose by 4.2 percent in May. The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos published a few takeaways to note other interesting stats from the report and understand the implications.

Here are some of Timiraos’ major points:

  • Median home prices rose fast, up 15.4 percent year-over-year, due to low inventory. Lawrence Yun, NAR’s Chief Economist, declared the quick rise “too fast” and noted that additional inventory was necessary to slow down growth. Additionally, the high median prices may be because more expensive properties are being sold, while foreclosed property sales have declined.

  • That said, inventory is coming up. The number of homes listed for sale rose by 3.3 percent last month.
  • As is true in the DC area, homes are selling much faster than usual. 45 percent of homes that sold in May were on the market for less than a month.
  • Watch for rising interest rates to change the trends, and the cost of buying a home to increase.

For Timiraos’ full analysis, click here.

See other articles related to: wall street journal, nick timiraos

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/existing_home_sales_are_up._a_few_takeaways/7228

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