January 30, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Weekly existing home sales volume nosedived last week, falling for the third consecutive week, while home prices also saw their first substantial decline in six weeks according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 150,375 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending January 26th, down 4.1 percent from the previous week’s total of 156,817 properties sold and 4.9 percent lower than the 158,091 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume has fallen 6.7 percent in the last two weeks alone and is down 21.1 percent from the current cycle peak of 190,688 sales on September 1st.

Last week’s home sales volume was 2.0 percent lower than the 153,521 homes sold during the same period a year ago but was still 6.1 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 141,747 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period ending January 26th also declined, falling 2.2 percent to $175,000 from $179,000 the previous week. Home prices had fluctuated within a narrow $1000 range over the previous five weeks until last week’s $4000 decline.

Home prices were 4.9 percent lower than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $184,000 and were 11.8 percent lower than the same period three years ago when the median price was $198,500.

Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to a low of $170,000.

Sales volume for a thirty day period within the last five years has ranged from a high of 339,669 properties sold to a low of 119,636.

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