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Existing home sales up 2.5%
Sales climb for 3rd straight month to 6.64M homes in April even as rates started to climb.
May 25, 2004: 10:22 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Sales of existing homes in the United States rose for the third consecutive month in April, an industry group reported Tuesday, coming in slightly ahead of economists' estimates even as mortgage rates climb.

Existing-home sales increased 2.5 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.64 million units from a level of 6.48 million units in March, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Wall Street expected sales of 6.45 million homes in April, according to Briefing.com.

Last month's sales activity was 15.1 percent above the 5.77-million unit pace in April 2003 and was just 0.6 percent shy of the all-time high of 6.68 million posted in September of last year, the group reported.

"Part of what we're seeing now is 'fence-jumping' from people wanting to buy a home before interest rates move higher," said David Lereah, NAR's chief economist. "Even with an additional rise in recent weeks, the good news is that mortgage interest rates now appear to be leveling out in the 6.3 percent range."

With signs of inflation creeping back into the economy, Treasury yields, which set mortgage rates, have jumped in anticipation of an interest rate hike.

The national median for home prices was $176,000 in April, up 7.3 percent from a year earlier, and inventory rose 9.4 percent to 2.6 million homes.  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.