Existing home sales in US rise by 2%

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Second-hand home sales in the US rose by 2% month-on-month in July, exceeding market expectations, figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed on Thursday.

According to the data, the number of existing home sales reached 4.01 million, while the market expectations for existing home sales during this period were 3.92 million.

Existing home sales had decreased by 2.7% in June to 3.93 million.

The median home price in the US existing home market rose by 0.2% year-on-year in July to $422,400.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, said that even a very small improvement in home buying power slightly increased home sales.

Yun said wage increases are now comfortably outpacing home price increases and that buyers have more options, noting that the near-zero increase in home prices shows that prices have fallen in nearly half of the country.