US home sales improve in January

Wednesday February 22, 2012

According to a report released today by the National Association of Realtors, US Existing-home sales rose in January, marking three gains in the past four months, while inventories continued to improve, Total existing-home sales, increased 4.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million in January from a downwardly revised 4.38 million-unit pace in December and 0.7 percent above a spike to 4.54 million in January 2011. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said strong gains in contract activity in recent months show buyers are responding to very favorable market conditions. Total housing inventory at the end of January fell 0.4 percent to 2.31 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 6.1-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a 6.4-month supply in December.

At 4:30 pm, EST the US dollar was trading higher against the Canadian dollar at 1.0004.
1 CAD dollar buys 0.9996 US dollars.

Market Commentary prepared by Bruce Hauser, Chief of Operations
bruce@accu-rate.ca