Homes Sales Up, Prices Down

It is a buyer's market, when will you start looking?

clipped from www.spokesman.com Home sales rising in West The Spokesman-Review Los Angeles – Home sales in the Western region of the country posted a 9 percent annual increase in May as homebuyers jumped on low interest rates and falling prices, according to two reports released Tuesday. Foreclosures and other distressed sales continued to drag down the median home sales price in the West. It tumbled more than 30 percent from May of last year to $197,700 – the biggest drop in any region. That helped pull the national median down nearly 17 percent to $173,000, the National Association of Realtors said. Nationally, sales rose slightly from April to May, but were roughly 7 percent below year-ago levels, without adjusting for seasonal factors. Home sales in the West have posted annual increases every month going back to at least last summer, when many first-time homebuyers and investors began snapping up sharply discounted bank-owned properties in Arizona, Nevada and California.