Existing Home Sales Rise for Third Consecutive Month

By Dream Town · March 23, 2007 · Market News

For the third straight month in a row, sales of existing homes have gone up, with a 3.9% increase in February. That is the biggest growth we’ve seen since March 2004.

The latest report on existing-home sales from the National Association of Realtors® was released today revealing growing sales trends throughout most of the U.S. Sales in the Midwest went up 3.9% whereas the Northeast saw a 14.2% jump. The South only experienced a 1.6% rise while sales remained unchanged in the West.

The current housing market is still lagging behind where it was a year ago, but the new sales numbers are better than were expected. Analysts predicted February sales would decline to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.35 million units. However, the NAR revealed sales actually hit 6.69 million nationwide. Single-family homes accounted for most of the sales with 5.88 million units (up 3.7% from the previous month), while condo sales (up 5.3% from January) made up the other 810,000 units sold in February.