Existing home sales up as inventory shrinks

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Existing home sales up 0.4% as inventory shrinks
from MarketWatch.com - MarketPulse
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Sales of existing home sales nudged up 0.4% in January, according to a report released Thursday showing the housing recovery has steadied as real-estate agents lament a more than decade low of supply. The National Association of Realtors said sales increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million in January from 4.9 million in December. That was just slightly ahead of the 4.9 million expected in a MarketWatch-compiled economist poll. Nationally, inventories fell 4.9%, or 25% year-on-year, to 1.74 million, which is the lowest since Dec. 1999. At the current sales pace, the months supply was 4.2, the lowest since April 2005. Compared to January 2012, the median sales price rose 12.9% to $173,600, marking the 11th straight month of year-on-year gains.