Home sales dip again. But is there hope?
It’s little surprise that the latest sales statistics released by the National Association of Realtors contained more than their share of bad news.
We’ve had little but bad news when it comes to the housing market for more than a year now, after all.
According to the latest report, sales of existing homes — a category that includes single-family homes, condominiums and co-ops — fell 3 percent in March when compared to February. The numbers look even worse when compared to sales from one year ago; Sales this March were 7.1 percent lower than during the same month one year earlier.
There is some good news, though. A survey of real estate practitioners showed that first-time buyers made up 53 percent of the real estate transactions in March. And this does not include any impact from the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit passed earlier this year by the federal government, as the 53-percent figure is based largely on contracts signed before that legislation became law.
The hope, then, for the start of a housing rebound lies largely with first-time buyers. Perhaps first-time buyers will come out in even greater numbers in the coming months, spurred by the $8,000 first-time buyers tax credit.
The other bit of good news from the Realtors report is that housing prices did increase in value in March. The national median existing-home sales price came in at $175,200 in March, up 4.2 percent from February. That’s a higher increase than the typical 1.8-percent price increase that happens every year from February to March.
