US home sales figures fall back

Selling a home in the US is not an easy task

Existing homes sales in the US dropped by 2.6% in April, making it the ninth month in a row that the volume of non-new build homes fell.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that the pace of monthly sales, at 5.99 million units, was the slowest since June 2003.

Slow sales meant that unsold homes remaining on the market hit a record total of 4.2 million.

There are concerns that this could further weaken the market.

Negative pressure

Troubles in the subprime mortgage market, which extends housing loans to people with poor credit histories, are another factor in the US housing equation.

US banks and lenders are exercising more caution in granting mortgages in the light of subprime problems. This in turn is depressing the market.

The NAR measures house prices by their median point, the exact spot between the lower and upper half of prices.

According to the NAR the median price of an existing US home is now $220,000 (£110,850), 0.8% less than the midpoint value in April 2006.