Industry group survey: Falling prices continue to bump sales

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Despite falling prices, U.S. home sales continue to lag behind last year’s levels, according to data released today by the National Assn. of Realtors.

The industry group’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, called the sales figures, which are based on a survey of its members, ‘a hopeful sign for the economy’ because sales were up from the first quarter.

Despite the quarter-to-quarter sales gain, existing homes are still selling at a pace below that of last year, which had been the worst year for home sales in nearly a decade.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of existing single-family home sales was 4.76 milliion units, down 2.9% from the 4.9-million pace in the second quarter of 2008. Actual home sales in 2008 totaled 4.913 million units.

Prices or previously owned single-family homes fell in 129 of 150 U.S. metropolitan areas compared to the same period a year ago, the Realtors group said. During the second quarter of 2008, prices had fallen in 115 of the 150 metro areas.

Those falling prices helped push sales up 3.8% in the second quarter from the first. Last year, second-quarter sales slipped slightly (less than 1%) from the first quarter.

But this year’s quarter-to-quarter sales increase still has not been enough to stop the ongoing national decline in home sales. The current sales pace is below last year’s, and last year’s 4.9-million sales total was down sharply from the 5.65 million homes sold in 2007.

-- Peter Y. Hong