| Description: | Housing Sector 'No Longer in Freefall'
1. Falling prices, cheap mortgages: More affordable home prices and cheap mortgage rates contributed to the monthly sales gain. The national median home price for May fell nearly 17 percent, to $173,000, from the yearearlier period. At the same time, 30year fixed mortgage rates averaged a remarkably attractive 4.86 percent during the month. Lower home purchase costs helped lure more buyers into the market. Meanwhile, "distressed sales" accounted for a third of all purchases made during the month, down sharply from 45 percent in April. "Offsetting forces are driving existing home sales," Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said in a report. "Driving sales up are distressed sales (foreclosures and short sales) to a lesser extent, improved affordability; driving sales down is weak demand. Distressed sales and improved affordability won the tug of war in April and May."
[See 2010 Home Price and Mortgage Rate Outlook: 5 Things t |