Home Sales Rose, Prices Fell in February

The AP reports:

After falling for six straight months, sales of existing homes posted an unexpected increase in February although the the median home price tumbled by the largest amount on record, a real estate trade group reported Monday.

The National Association of Realtors said that sales of existing homes rose by 2.9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units. It was the biggest increase in a year and caught economists by surprise. They had been expecting a small decline.

Part of the sales improvement may have reflected more aggressive price cutting. The median home price fell to $195,900. That was the largest year-over-year drop on records that go back to 1999.