July 30, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Existing home sales fell for the first time since the beginning of March according to the weekly National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick while home prices continued to edge upward.

There were 218,291 properties sold over the previous thirty-day rolling period ending July 26th, down 1.0 percent from the previous week’s total of 220,425 sold properties but still 4.6 percent higher than the 208,626 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume was 14.3 percent above the previous year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales which occurred during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st.

Last week’s home sales volume was 12.4 percent higher than the 194,206 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 9.5 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 199,434 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the current thirty-day rolling period increased by $900 from last week to $197,900 and was 2.8 percent higher than what it was four weeks ago when the median sales price was $193,500.

Home prices were 7.0 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $185,000 and were 4.6 percent higher than what they were three years ago when the median price was also $189,200. It was the 16th consecutive week that year-over-year home prices surpassed the previous year’s levels.

Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to a low of $168,500.

Home sales volume over the last five years has ranged from a high of 339,669 properties sold to a low of 124,051.

The National Home Sales Snapshot includes 98 out of the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas covering 66.25 percent of U.S. home sales.

Tags: DataQuick, home sales, median home price, sales volume

Source:
DataQuick