Existing-home sales rise 2% in May
Resales of U.S. houses and condos rose 2% to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.99 million in May from 4.89 million in April. It's the highest sales pace since February.
No kidding, it's spring selling season. Resales are down 15.9% in the past year.
About a third of total sales are distressed sales, such as foreclosures or short sales, said Paul Bishop, senior economist for the real estate trade group. Many sales of foreclosed homes wouldn't be counted in the realtors' survey because they do not go through the multiple listing service.
The median sales price in May was $208,600, down 6.3% compared with a year ago.
BTW, it seems like NAR is releasing the press release only to MSM and delaying the release on their website. Looks like they are using MSM to hide the negatives that bloggers would provide.
At the same time, mortgage rates rose slightly last week. The 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.45% from 6.42% last week. That is the highest rate since Aug 23, 2007. Yes that is the start of the fed's rate cuts. So it seems like the rate cuts are not helping mortgage rate and probably hurting them as the low rates are creating higher inflation. I can't think of anytime when the NAR and CEOs of companies like Dow Chemical are asking to raise rates to fight inflation (In case of NAR, it said to be careful cutting rate when the rate was at 2.25%). Has fed lost all the credibility?
No comments:
Post a Comment