Looking for some good news? Well, there isn’t much, so this will have to do:
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes increased 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million last month, from 4.49 million units in January. It was the largest sales jump since July 2003.
Sales had been expected to fall to an annual pace of 4.45 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.
….February’s median sales price was up slightly from January, which
recorded the lowest median price since September 2002. Prices are down
about 28 percent from their peak in July 2006.
It’s not clear what caused this, since home prices are almost certainly going to keep falling another 20% or so. In fact, this might even be bad news in a way, since the faster we hit bottom and get back to trend growth, the faster we’re likely to see the end of the recession. But really, these days, who knows?
