Realtors: Home sales down 2.2 percent

Many families' relocations to new homes in October may have been held back by the national foreclosure stoppage, a trend experts say will likely persist through the end of the year.

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales retreated 2.2 percent in October from the previous month, reversing two consecutive months of improving sales activity. Existing home sales track completed transactions for single-family homes, condos and townhouses, and the report said that many transactions may have been stalled because of bank-imposed foreclosure halts.

"The housing market is experiencing an uneven recovery, and a temporary foreclosure stoppage in some states is likely to have held back a number of completed sales. Still, sales activity is clearly off the bottom and is attempting to settle into normal sustainable levels,” said NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun.

Existing home sales are currently hovering around a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million, and Yun said he expects that figure to grow over 5 million by spring of next year.

Some areas of the country are seeing moving activity come to a standstill - and not just because of lenders' foreclosure halts. Reports out of New Orleans say that the city's real estate market has slowed to a sluggish pace after a massive computer crash locked real estate professionals out of vital property data needed to complete home sales. It is unclear when that issue will be resolved, meaning moving plans there will continue to be delayed.

 

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