Stillwind Home for Sale in SW Gainesville (Photo credit: ChrisBohn)

Existing Home Sales Rise July 2013

A National Association of Realtors (NAR) report released yesterday (21st August, 2013) says that existing home sales rose up to 6.5% in the month of July, a clear indication that housing recovers to its highest level in nearly 4 years.

According to the association, homes/houses sold at a 5.39 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), surprisingly surpassing the forecast of economists which stood at a 1.15 million sales space. The latest existing home sales rate was up 17.1% from the same month in 2012 and the highest since November, 2009. 

Amazed by how housing recovers, Walter Molony, who is the NAR spokesman, said that the association has never recorded three straight months of 5 million or more since the last quarter of the year 2007.

Another report released yesterday by the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee (FRFOMC) says that as housing recovers, the economy is expected to accelerate greatly by the end of this year.

Sadly, Lawrence Yun, NAR's Chief Executive, warns that the number of existing home sales may soon slow down due to the high interest rates, but the prices can rise under tight inventories of homes being sold. Yun added that mortgage interest rates have continued to rise in the past two years, making it hard for potential home buyers to buy many homes as they would like to. This means that last month's sign that housing recovers may be be temporary as it was caused by buyers rushing to buy homes before the mortgage rates shot up