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4th Quarter :3rd Best on Record

February 16, 2006

David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said rising interest rates dampened the sales pace in the closing quarter of last year. “Mortgage interest rates were at the highest level since the third quarter of 2003,” he said. “At the same time, we’ve seen strong double-digit appreciation in home prices, so a modest slowing from record sales was to be expected. The good news is that home sales are being sustained at historically high levels.”

Total existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, were at the third-highest pace on record in the fourth quarter of 2005. In addition, 24 states showed increases in sales activity over the same period in 2004, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

The latest report on total existing-home sales shows that nationwide the seasonally adjusted annual rate* was 6.90 million units in the fourth quarter, up 0.3 percent from the 6.88 million-unit level in the fourth quarter of 2004 but 4.7 percent below the record pace of 7.24 million units in the third quarter of last year. The second highest sales rate was 7.22 million in the second quarter of 2005.

The strongest performance was in Arkansas, where the fourth-quarter resale pace jumped 29.8 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2004. Alaska existing-home sales rose 28.4 percent from a year earlier, while Louisiana posted the third highest increase, up 28.1 percent. (Katrina influenced? by flippers?) Six other states also recorded double-digit sales gains from a year ago. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia posted declines, although 39 states set records for all of 2005.

Written by untiled · Filed Under Conservative Liberal Moral Politics 

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