Wednesday August 15, 10:18 am ET
The National Association of Realtors said existing homes sold at a annual rate of 5.91 million homes in the second quarter, down from a pace of 6.63 million in the quarter a year ago.
Nationwide median home prices dropped 1.5 percent to $223,800 from $227,100 in the same quarter last year. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less.
However, the real estate agents' trade group saw encouraging price trends in many metropolitan areas. In more than 60 percent of 149 metro areas around the country, median prices increased from last year's levels.
The Salt Lake City and Binghamton, N.Y. areas actually had price gains of nearly 20 percent for single-family homes, while the Elmira, N.Y. and Melbourne, FL areas had price declines of 15 percent or more.
The report comes comes as delinquencies among borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit have risen dramatically over the past year, and other loans are showing weakness as well. Lenders have dramatically tightened their borrowing standards amid fears that delinquencies will rise further.
"Although home prices are relatively flat, more metro areas are showing price gains with general improvement since bottoming-out in the fourth quarter of 2006," Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said in a statement. "Recent mortgage disruptions will hold back sales temporarily, but the fundamental momentum clearly suggests stabilizing price trends in many local markets."
The San Francisco Bay Area was the most expensive region of the country, with median prices of $865,000 for San Jose and $846,000 for San Francisco.
Last week, the Realtors trade group lowered its monthly sales forecast, predicting that home sales will hit a five-year low this year. The revised forecast calls for existing home sales of 6.04 million in 2007, down 6.8 percent from last year. This year's sales would be the lowest since 2002, when sales hit 5.63 million.
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