Existing home sales end 2003 on strong note, says NAR
There was a total of 6,100,000 existing home sales in 2003, up 9.6 percent from the previous record of 5,566,000 in 2002. NAR began tracking the sales series in 1968.
Existing home sales increased 6.9 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.47 million units from a level of 6.05 million units in November. Last month's sales activity was 8.9 percent higher than the 5.94-million unit level in December 2002 and was second only to a record 6.68 million-unit pace in September 2003.
Housing inventory levels fell 7.3 percent at the end of December with 2.3 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 4.3-month supply at the current sales pace. However, inventories were 8 percent higher than December 2002 when there were 2.13 million homes available.
The national median existing-home price was $173,200 in December, up 6.7 percent from December 2002 when the median price was $162,400. For all of 2003, the median price was $169,900, up 7.5 percent from a median of $158,100 in 2002. This is the strongest annual increase since 1980 when the median price rose 11.7 percent.
Regionally, existing home sales in the Midwest jumped 9.4 percent from November to an annual rate of 1.39 million units in December, and were 3.7 percent above December 2002. The median price in the Midwest was $141,900, up 3.4 percent from a year ago.
The home resale pace in the West rose 7.9 percent from November to an annual rate of 1.77 million units in December, and was 10.6 percent stronger than December 2002. The median existing- home price in the West was $248,300, up 16.4 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Existing home sales in the South increased 5.3 percent in December to an annual rate of 2.58 million units, and were 10.7 percent higher than a year ago. The median price of an existing home in the South was $158,900, which was 4.2 percent higher than December 2002.
In the Northeast, existing-home sales rose 2.9 percent from November to a pace of 720,000 units in December, and were 9.1 percent higher than December 2002. The median existing-home price in the Northeast was $192,600, up 11.4 percent from a year earlier.
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