Housing Uptick

In a sea of bad news since last year for housing, there have been some recent signs of recovery. The National Association of Realtors, which this company belongs to, reported that existing home sales, including single family,townhomes, condos and coops,?in December of 2008, jumped 6.5% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.74 million units from an a pace of 4.45 million units in November. However, take into account that this still below the pace of December a year ago which was 4.91 million units. Also another bit of good news is that the national housing inventory fell 11.7% in December to 3.68 million homes available for sale. This number represents a 9.3 month supply of existing homes, which is down from an 11.2 month supply in November. The final bit of good news for Buyers is that home prices continue to fall significantly, and this has also contributed to the increase in existing home sales.