WASHINGTON — Buyers who were brave enough to dive into the market for a bargain-priced house helped provide a modest boost to sales last month.
Sales of inexpensive foreclosures and other distressed low-end properties have even sparked bidding wars in such places as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami.
But the market for high- end properties is at a virtual standstill, mainly because it remains difficult to get a mortgage for expensive homes.
“We’re looking at a dual market right now,” said Sherry Chris, chief executive of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that home resales rose 2.9 percent to an annual rate of 4.68 million in April from a downwardly revised pace of 4.55 million in March.
Sales were 4.6 percent below April last year, without adjusting for seasonal factors.
Compared with January, the lowest point in the housing recession, April home resales were up nearly 4 percent.
But compared with the peak in September 2005, sales were still down 35 percent.
And they have not kept pace with foreclosures, which continue to pile up at an alarming pace. Those properties helped drag down the median sales price to $170,200.
