September 24, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Existing home sales moved lower last week after reaching the current year’s sales cycle peak the previous week according to the weekly National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick while home prices slipped back to the same level they had settled into the previous five weeks.

There were 219,779 properties sold over the previous thirty-day rolling period ending September 20th, down 0.9 percent from the previous week’s total of 221,695 sold properties but still 0.7 percent higher than the 218,318 properties sold four weeks ago.

The previous week’s sales total of 221,695 properties was the highest so far in this year’s real estate sales cycle.

Last week’s home sales volume was 9.8 percent higher than the 200,123 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 1.9 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 215,697 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the current thirty-day rolling period fell by $1,000 from last week to $200,000 which was the same median price as four weeks ago. It was the sixth time in the last seven weeks that home prices have remained at that price.

Home prices were 7.8 percent higher than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $185,500 and were 2.6 percent higher than what they were three years ago when the median price was $195,000. It was the 24th 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