Rising rents, bargain home prices, record-low mortgage interest rates, pent-up household formation and sustained job creation are the elements that sustained the uptrend in home sales in the first month of this year, this according to the recent report of the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
“The uptrend in home sales is in line with all of the underlying fundamentals – pent-up household formation, record-low mortgage interest rates, bargain home prices, sustained job creation and rising rents,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.
“Word has been spreading about the record high housing affordability conditions …,”NAR president Moe Veissi said.
NAR president added, “With other favorable market factors, these are hopeful indicators leading into the spring home-buying season.”
NAR report shows that home sales increased once more in January of 2012.
“Existing-home sales rose in January, marking three gains in the past four months,” NAR report shows.
The association of realtors data shows that completed transactions of single-family homes, co-ops, condominiums and townhomes increased by 4.3% “to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million in January from a downwardly revised 4.38 million-unit pace in December and are 0.7 percent above a spike to 4.54 million in January 2011.”
The national median existing-home price for all housing types, according to NAR, was $154,700 in January of this year. This is 2% down compared to the January 2011 data.
Meanwhile, the median existing single-family home price was $154,400 in January. This is 2.6% less than the median existing single-family home price in January 2011.
Foreclosures and short sales accounted for 35% of the sales last month. Specifically, 22% were foreclosures and 13% were short sales.
Out of the homes sold last month, 23% of those sold were bought by investors; while 33% of home sold last month were purchased by first-time home buyers.
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