Record Pace of June Home Re-sales Will Be Tough to Beat, Realtors Say - 8/2/2004 - Mortgage Loan Refinance Debt Equity

Record Pace of June Home Re-sales Will Be Tough to Beat, Realtors Say

Housing re-sales in June were 17.4% ahead of the pace of a year earlier, the Realtors® reported.

“Although we’ve been expecting sales to ease, it’s clear the market has tremendous momentum,” said David Lereah, the association’s chief economist. “The improving job market and higher consumer confidence are feeding into a large demographic demand for housing. It’s unlikely that we’ll top the pace in June, but home sales remain very healthy and are likely to stay quite strong, even with some easing expected in the second half of the year.”

Existing-home sales were up 3.5% in the Midwest, 3.1% in the West, 2.8% in the Northeast and 0.4% in the South.

Housing inventories at the end of the month slipped 0.8% to a total of 2.4 million existing homes available for sale, representing a 4.1-month supply at the current sales pace.

Lereah said that interest rates have been rising because of healthy economic growth and he predicted that they won’t dampen the strength of the nation’s housing market.

“In fact, mortgage interest rates will remain very favorable in historic terms for the foreseeable future,” he said. “One concern is for lower-income home buyers who are affected the most by a rise in financing costs — our hope is that the improving job market will provide the means to also afford decent housing at the lower rungs of the housing ladder.”

Lereah predicted that the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage will rise to the 6.7% level by the fourth quarter of this year.