Existing-Home Sales Reach Two-Year High

As a direct consequence of the credit crisis, the real estate market stumbled thanks to a severe drop in the amount of money that banks were willing to give to potential homeowners. The resulting drop in home prices across the board has now created a buyer’s market, leading to a massive 7.2 percent jump in the number of sales of existing homes in July.
 
The figure comes from the National Association of Realtors, which began keeping track of the statistic in 1999 and has never recorded a monthly increase as large as July’s. According to the report, home sales have picked up to an annual pace of 5.24 million sales, a number that has risen consecutively for the last four months.
 
Analysts credit falling home prices and the economic stimulus with allowing many first-time home buyers to purchase property, even at a time when the economy at large continues to suffer. Another big help for the real estate market is record-low mortgage rates, which have fallen to an average of 5.12 percent from last year’s average of 6.5 percent.

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