Existing Home Sales Leap 10% to 4.53M Rate

WASHINGTON — Existing home sales jumped 10.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.53 million in September, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday, while warning against a moratorium on foreclosure sales.

Sales in August totaled 4.21 million, revised up from the 4.13 million reported last month. There were 3.84 million existing home sales in July, the lowest on record dating back to 1999.

Economists expected 4.300 million existing home sales in September, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters. Monthly sales of previously owned homes have averaged a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.84 million since Jan. 1, 2001.

“We are a long way from seeing the end of the financial crisis and its aftershocks,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, said in a research note. “The housing market provides one of the most visible and disturbing examples. The inability of housing to recover in a more 'normal’ way, in particular, will continue to suppress and limit the degree to which the economy can recover for some time to come.”

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