By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home resales rose in April to the highest level in nearly 3-1/2 years and prices surged, offering the economy a buffer from the stiff headwinds posed by belt-tightening by Washington.
The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday existing home sales advanced 0.6 percent to an annual rate of 4.97 million units, the highest level since November 2009.
The data underscored the housing market's improving fortunes as it starts to regain its lost glory. Resales were 9.7 percent higher than the same period last year.
"It's quite supportive of the overall economy," said Michelle Meyer, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. "It's a cushion against some of the other concerns in the economy."
Economic activity appears to have slowed somewhat early in the second quarter as the effects of higher taxes and deep government spending cuts started filtering through.
Manufacturing, in particular, has been showing strains, but housing has held up surprisingly well, with the gains in home values helping to boost consumer confidence and retail sales.
The ripples from housing's recovery have also extended to the jobs market, where construction employment has been rising.
That should limit the degree to which the economy slows this quarter. It expanded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year.
U.S. stocks were narrowly mixed in afternoon trading. Treasury debt prices were lower while the dollar was higher against a basket of currencies.
PRICES SOAR
Tight supplies in some parts of the country have constrained the pace of home sales, but sellers are starting to wade back into the market, attracted by rising prices.
In April, the median home sales price increased 11 percent from a year ago to $192,800, the highest level since August 2008. It was the fifth consecutive month of double-digit gains.
With prices rising, more sellers put their properties on the market. The inventory of homes on the market rose 11.9 percent from March to 2.16 million.
That represented a 5.2 months' supply at April's sales pace, up from 4.7 months in March. It remained, however, below the 6.0 months that is normally considered a good balance between supply and demand.
The market has been helped by monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve that has kept mortgage rates near record lows. On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear he was not yet ready to retreat from the U.S. central bank's monthly $85 billion asset purchase program.
Adding to signs that the housing recovery was becoming firmly established, distressed properties - which can weigh on prices because they typically sell at deep discounts - accounted for only 18 percent of sales last month.
That was the lowest since the Realtors group started monitoring them in October 2008. These properties, foreclosures and short sales, had made up 21 percent of sales in March.
In another bright sign, properties are selling faster. The median time on market for homes was 46 days in April, down from 62 days the prior month. That was the fewest days since the NAR started monitoring that number in May 2011. Before the market collapsed in 2006, it usually took about 90 days to sell a home.
"While there are clearly a lot of interested buyers out there snapping up homes at a rapid clip, there do not seem to be enough homes on the market," said Omair Sharif, an economist at RBS in Stamford, Connecticut.
About 44 percent of all homes sold in April had been on the market for less than a month, while only 8 percent had been on the market for a year or longer.
Last month, first-time buyers accounted for 29 percent of the transactions, with investors buying 19 percent of homes. Investors, both individuals and institutions, are mostly buying homes for renting.
Sales were up in three of the four regions, falling 3.4 percent in the Midwest.
(Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/existing-home-sales-highest-almost-3-1-2-140246267.html
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her thing I found a little strange, when you invite people for a review you don?t hand over a glass and ask the guests to share. I would have been fine with less of the drink, may be they should have served in shot glasses if they had a con
straint on the number of drinks they want to serve the guests but somehow the idea of handing over the glasses to us and asking us to taste from the same didn?t go down too well with me.
hoping the food will make us forget the experience at the bar but I guess we had all left our lucky stars back home that day since the usually good Azure fair was below average in most accounts. I think the only two dishes that stood out for me that day were the sea food broth, where the flavours were fabulous and the shrimps and the clams in it perfectly cooked. The other dish which I have a strong and good memory from that day is the?Plum tomato confit, artichoke and cured buffalo mozzarella with french dressing. I have to say this 
was the dish of the day for me, one of the best confits I have had and the tomatoes were so nicely cooked that there was a discussion on the table on just how they managed it and what have they done to it, unfortunately it wasn?t my dish but I did steal a few bites from Swaps who was sitting right next to me
ains to say that none of the dips were really outstanding. Yes they weren?t bad but a place which calls itself a Mediterranean joint you certainly expect better.
and was so hoping for the dish that will blow me away a dish that will change my mind into writing a stellar review (I hate writing bad reviews), I ordered Baked Prawns and its a sad day when you leave one of the three jumbo prawns that you have been served because they are overcooked and rubbery and I really struggled to finish the two and did because I was really hungry and didn?t want to go back home and cook again. Sadly the fate of others on the table was similar, I saw people leaving lamb chops and tenderloins because either the meat was over cooked or raw. Another dish I was really looking forward to was the?Tajine but as soon as I got to know that it was only served in the tajine vessel I actually felt cheated, I am wondering how the person who ordered it felt.
time I had no hopes what so ever and the fact that Swaps told that their baklava was not so stellar last time she came just killed whatever little hopes I had and I have to give it to her because she called that baklava not so stellar according to my view it was BAD. The beauty of baklava for me is the gorgeous layers of phyllo pastry with the crunch of nuts and a fair amount of ghee/butter. Its the explosion of textures and flavors in every bite that makes baklava what it is.? Sadly this had none of it, to be fair to them it had a lot of nuts may be a little more than what usually is there in a baklava but if I had to eat nuts I would fry them in ghee and eat. The warm chocolate fallen cake with organic vanilla ice cream was certainly a little bit of save face for them. It was a decent chocolate cake but it was the ice cream both which came with the cake and which was served as gelato which fell on its face. First I don?t think they were different ice creams atleast there wasn?t any taste of flavor difference between them which is strange since one was the vanilla and other was red wine gelato and two they had big ice crystals in them. So disappointing
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Public release date: 18-May-2013
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