WASHINGTON -- Home resales fell in October as a persistent shortage of properties limited choice for potential buyers and pushed up prices, suggesting some softening in the pace of the housing market recovery after strong gains early this year.
Still, housing remains on solid footing, with sales for the full year on track to be the best in eight years. That should see housing take up some of the slack from a chronically weak manufacturing sector.
The housing market is in decent shape but could be a lot better if people decided they were ready to move and listed their homes.
"The housing market is in decent shape but could be a lot better if people decided they were ready to move and listed their homes," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday existing home sales declined 3.4 percent to an annual rate of 5.36 million units. September's sales pace was unrevised at 5.55 million units and was the second highest since 2007.
The drop in sales was expected after contracts to purchase previously owned homes fell for two straight months. But with a tightening labor market, marked by a 5 percent unemployment rate, housing fundamentals are fairly healthy.
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