Sluggish start for spring homebuying season as home sales fall in March with mortgage rates rising
Time:2024-04-19 07:45:50 Source:politicsViews(143)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The spring homebuying season is off to a sluggish start as home shoppers contend with elevated mortgage rates and rising prices.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell 4.3% in March from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the first monthly decline in sales since December and follows a nearly 10% monthly sales jump in February.
Existing home sales also fell 3.7% compared with March last year. The latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.16 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.
A modest pullback in mortgage rates early this year helped lift home sales in January and February, but rates mostly ticked up in February and March, when many of the home sales that were finalized last month would have taken place.
Previous:EU proposes youth mobility agreement with UK to help youngsters travel, work and live in both areas
You may also like
- Depleted New Zealand batting first against Pakistan in T20
- EDITORIAL: Diet ethics panels failing to unravel the tangled LDP funding scandal
- Bayer faces Australian test with judge to decide whether weedkiller caused cancer
- Work to begin on Nelson road badly damaged in 2022 floods
- District attorney says Memphis police officer may have been killed by friendly fire
- Long Covid 'extremely debilitating' for teachers, union says
- Ghahraman back in New Zealand amid shoplifting claims
- Christopher Luxon tells team to fact
- Possible TikTok ban revived as part of House foreign aid package