BusinessA"for sale" sign is displayed in front of a home in Mount Prospect, Ill., Monday, March 18, 2024. On Thursday, March 21, 2024, the National Association of Realtors reports on existing home sales for February. – Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in January from the previous month to the strongest pace in a year with homebuyers encouraged by a modest pullback in mortgage rates and more properties on the market.
The pickup in sales helped push up home prices compared with a year earlier for the eighth month in a row. The national median sales price climbed 5.7% from a year earlier to $384,500. That’s the highest median sales price for February on records going back to 1999. At the end of last month, there were 1.07 million unsold homes on the market, a 5.9% increase from January and up 10.3% from a year earlier. That's the highest inventory of homes for sale for February since 2020, the NAR said.