Sales of previously occupied homes rose by 2.9 percent from March to April as buyers took advantage of prices that were 15.4 percent below the level they were a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. Home sales rose 2.9 percent to an annual rate of 4.68 million last month, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.55 million in March, they said. The results slightly surpassed economists' forecasts, as sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 4.66 million units, according to Thomson Reuters. The median sales price fell to $170,200, down from $201,300 in the same month last year. That was the second-largest price drop on record after January, when prices fell 17.5 percent. The number of unsold homes on the market at the end of April rose almost 9 percent from a month earlier to nearly 4 million—a 10-month supply at the current sales pace. “We still need a continuing and consistent rise in home sales to get the inventory down,” said Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist. Only then, economists say, will prices stabilize and eventually recover.
