More data that show an upswing in housing market

Filed in archive mortgage news on July 23, 2009

You can practically hear the real estate agents screaming for joy. Yes, there is yet more evidence today that the housing market is in the midst of a recovery. Yes, it's early in the process. And, yes, again, it's still a fragile recovery. But it is a recovery, and that means that real estate agents may soon be seeing fatter paychecks.

Of course, consumers aren't too concerned about whether real estate agents make enough money to take that winter trip to Hawaii. They're more concerned about whether they can sell their homes and if they can sell them for a high enough figure. According to the Associated Press, housing prices are still suffering when compared to last year. But they are rising fairly steadily. Home sales, too, are increasing in most parts of the country.

Here's the good news in a nutshell: According to the Associated Press, home sales rose 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million last month. That's up from a pace of 4.72 million recorded in May. And the sales increases were spread out; they were up in all four regions of the country.

If you're really looking for reason to cheer, June's home sales were as high as sales had been since way back in last October.

Housing prices are still a bit weak. The median sales price of an existing home stood at $181,800 in June. That's down 15 percent from a year ago. However, it is up a bit from the $174,700 median sales price that we saw in May.

Of course, it's not time to get too excited yet. We need to see several more months of this. We also need to see home values continue to increase. Talk to me next winter. Then we'll see just how strong this particular recovery is.