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

DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994                   TAG: 9408110008
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOUSING PRICES RISE ON STRONG DEMAND

Although mortgage rates were rising, Americans kept buying homes during the April-June quarter, driving prices up moderately in many areas of the nation, a real estate trade group said Wednesday.

The National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes rose 13.6 percent over the same quarter of 1993, to a 4.5 million annual rate.

In the Roanoke Valley, however, sales of both new and existing homes were off 38 percent in July compared with a year earlier.

Local Realtors blamed the decline on fluctuating rates.

But the national Realtors association said increased demand helped boost the national median price 3.3 percent over the period, to $110,600. The median is the midpoint, meaning half of the homes cost more and half cost less.

Robert Elrod, the Realtors president, said that despite higher mortgage rates, financing remained sufficiently affordable to attract buyers.

``Many people, including first-time and trade-up buyers who had been delaying their purchases, decided to go ahead rather than risk further rate increases,'' he said.

Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 8.45 percent during the April-June quarter, up from 7.3 percent in the first quarter, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Rates ranged in the double-digits during much of the 1980s.

The Realtors survey found the price increases to be moderate in many areas, although there were occasional spikes in some markets.

Honolulu had the most expensive homes, with a median price of $365,000, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls area of Iowa had the least expensive, $51,700, a 3.1 percent increase.

The South experienced a 3.3 percent median price increase.

The median price rose 4.1 percent in the West, to $148,100.

But the Northeast, which has been slow to recover from the recession, posted a 1.7 percent drop in the median price, to $139,700. Still, some areas registered moderate increases, including 3.2 percent advances in Boston, to $181,300, and in Rochester, N.Y., to $86,500.

by CNB