WASHINGTON — Home resales unexpectedly plunged in January to the lowest level in nearly 12 years as pessimism about the economy grew and buyers waited for President Barack Obama’s plan to help revive the U.S. housing market.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that home resales fell 5.3 percent to an annual rate of 4.49 million last month, from 4.74 million in December. It was the weakest showing since July 1997, and some analysts don’t see sales bottoming out until later this year as prices continue to sink.
Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 4.79 million homes, according to Thomson Reuters.
“If Americans are worried they won’t have a job next month, next quarter or next year, you’ve got a real problem,” Mike Larson, a real-estate analyst with Weiss Research, wrote in a research note.
Without adjusting for seasonal factors, sales nationwide fell 7.6 percent from a year earlier. The West was the only part of the country to show increased sales.
Sales had surged in December, providing some hope that the long-awaited housing-market bottom was in sight. But economic fears are now paramount in the minds of many consumers.
The median sales price in January plunged to $170,300, down 14.8 percent from $199,800 a year earlier and from $175,700 in December.
It was the lowest price since March 2003 and the second- largest drop on record.
The number of unsold homes on the market fell almost 3 percent last month to 3.6 million, the lowest inventory level in two years.
But because of the slumping sales pace, it would still take 9.6 months to rid the market of all of those properties, up from 9.4 months in December.
The number of properties languishing on the market likely would be higher if sellers weren’t so reluctant to list their properties as prices sink rapidly, Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist with MFR Inc., wrote in a note Wednesday.
“With supply overhang still huge and mortgage financing difficult to obtain, home prices are likely to decline considerably further in the quarters ahead,” he wrote.
Foreclosures have swamped the market — especially in particularly distressed states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.
