Sales of existing homes rise by 6.5 percent

Buyers were taking advantage of lower home prices.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

Sales of existing homes posted an unexpected increase last month, closing out the worst year for the U.S. real estate market in more than a decade.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes rose 6.5 percent to an annual rate of 4.74 million in December, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.45 million in November.

The results were better than expected. December’s sales had been forecast to fall to a pace of 4.4 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.

Buyers were taking advantage of dramatically lower prices, especially in distressed markets such as California, Florida and Nevada, where foreclosures have swamped the market.

The Mahoning Valley had split results, according to figures released by the Youngstown-Columbiana Association of Realtors.

Trumbull County recorded 101 home closings last month, compared with 88 in December 2007. Columbiana had 41 home closings last month, up one from December 2007.

Mahoning County recorded 133 closings, down from 155 in the same month of 2007.

In Ohio, sales of both existing and new homes rose 9 percent in December from the level seen in November, the Ohio Association of Realtors reported Monday.

The state’s average sale price for 2008 was $136,700, down 8.6 percent from the 2007 average of $149,600, the trade group said.

The nationwide median sales price plunged to $175,400 in December, down 15.3 percent from $207,000 a year ago.

That was the lowest price since May 2003 and the biggest year-over-year drop on records going back to 1968.

“The economy just simply cannot recover as long as home prices continue to decline,” said Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, who called on lawmakers to include tax credits for home buyers in the economic recovery package being considered by Congress.

For all of 2008, there were 4.9 million existing home sales in the U.S., down more than 13 percent from a year earlier, and the lowest total since 1997. Ohio had 113,800 sales of existing and new homes last year, a decline of 13.1 percent from 2007.

In another encouraging sign, the number of unsold homes on the market in the last month fell nearly 12 percent to 3.7 million.

At the current sales pace, it would take 9.3 months to sell all the properties, down from 11.2 months in November.