Home sales rose in January as easing mortgage rates, more homes for sale enticed homebuyers

abcnews.go.com:

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in January as homebuyers seized upon easing mortgage rates and a modest pickup in properties on the market

LOS ANGELES — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in January as homebuyers were encouraged by easing mortgage rates and a modest pickup in properties on the market.

Existing home sales rose 3.1% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the strongest sales pace since August and is slightly higher than the 3.98 million sales pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

The modest sales increase is an encouraging start for the housing market, which has been mired in a slump the past two years. Still, compared with January 2023, sales fell 1.7%. Existing home sales sank to a nearly 30-year low last year, tumbling 18.7% from 2022.

“While home sales remain sizably lower than a couple of years ago, January’s monthly gain is the start of more supply and demand,” said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.

The pickup in sales helped push up home prices compared with a year earlier for the seventh month in a row. The national median sales price rose 5.1% from January last year to $379,100. That's the highest median sales price for January on records going back to 1999.

For the first time in 14 months, the median home sales price outpaced the 4.5% annual gain in U.S. wage growth recorded in January.

“It's unhealthy, we don’t want to see it, but its a testament to the housing shortage we’re facing in America,” Yun said.

Competition for relatively few homes on the market and elevated mortgage rates have limited house hunters’ buying power on top of years of soaring