
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991                   TAG: 9102070129
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HOME RESALES HIT 6-YEAR LOW

Sales of existing homes sank 5.5 percent in the final three months of 1990 to the lowest quarterly level in six years. Potential buyers were deterred by worries over the economy and the Persian Gulf crisis, a real estate trade group said Wednesday.

Those concerns, combined with higher mortgage rates earlier in the year, depressed sales for all of 1990 to 3.61 million units, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors.

That was a 4.5 percent drop from 1989 and the lowest number of sales since 3.49 million in 1985, the Realtors said.

Sales in the final quarter totaled a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.42 million units, the smallest since a 3.03 million rate in the same quarter of 1984, the NAR said.

The survey covered sales of existing single-family detached homes, town houses, apartment condominiums and co-operatives. Existing-home sales represent about 80 percent of the housing market.

New-home sales also suffered last year, the Commerce Department reported earlier. They were down 17.5 percent to 536,000 units, against 650,000 in 1989.

But analysts anticipate a pickup in sales of both new and existing homes by spring or summer, assuming interest rates remain low, the economy resumes growth and the outcome in the Persian Gulf is favorable.

"Fortunately, housing, like other major economic forces, is cyclical and should improve significantly in most regions by spring," said Realtors economist John A. Tuccillo.

The Realtors said the national median price of an existing home was $92,200 in the fourth quarter, down 4.6 percent from the third quarter but off just 0.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 1989, when it was $92,700.

Realtors President Harley E. Rouda said some markets in the South posted steady price gains for existing homes.

by CNB