Nation's Building News Online

Home Resales at Near-Record Level in April

Sales of existing single-family homes rose for the third consecutive month in April to the second highest pace ever recorded, the National Association of Realtors® reported last week.

Home resales climbed 2.5% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.64 million. That was 15.1% higher than a year earlier and just 0.6% shy of an all-time high of 6.68 million units last September.

David Lereah, the association’s chief economist, said that a strong sales number for April had been expected and May should be another big month for housing sales.

“Part of what we’re seeing now is fence jumping from people wanting to buy a home before interest rates move higher," said Lereah. “Even with an additional rise in recent weeks, the good news is that mortgage interest rates now appear to be leveling out in the 6.3% range.”

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According to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage was 5.83% in April, up from 5.45% in March; the rate a year earlier was almost the same at 5.81%.

“It appears that we’ve already experienced most of the anticipated rise in mortgage interest rates and they’ll probably increase only modestly in the second half of the year,” said NAR President Walt McDonald, broker-owner of Walt McDonald Real Estate in Riverside, CA.

Existing home sales in April rose 4.4% in the Midwest, 3.5% in the South, 1.4% in the Northeast and 0.5% in the West.

There were 2.57 million existing homes for sale in April, a 4.6-month supply.

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