Home sales fall across nation

Sales of existing homes fell in 45 states during the October-December quarter, with metropolitan areas showing growing weakness, a real estate trade group said Thursday.

The fourth-quarter data from the National Assn. of Realtors underscore the breadth of the housing market’s slump.

South Dakota was the lone state to show an increase. Existing-home sales there rose 8.9% from the same quarter a year ago. Sales were unchanged in North Dakota. No figures were available for Idaho, Indiana and New Hampshire. Sales also declined in Washington, D.C.

Median home prices fell in more than half of the 150 metropolitan areas surveyed. Of the 77 that saw declines, 16 showed double-digit percentage drops, the trade group said. The largest price declines were in Lansing, Mich.; Sacramento; Jackson, Miss.; and Riverside, which posted slides of 17% to 19%.

Nationwide, existing homes sold at an annual rate of 4.96 million units in the fourth quarter, down 21% from the sales pace a year earlier.

The states suffering the biggest drop in sales in the fourth quarter were Nevada, down 44%, and Wyoming, down 42%. Other states with big declines were New Mexico, down 39%, Oregon, down 38%, and Arizona, down 37.6%.

In a separate report, DataQuick Information Systems said California home sales tumbled to the lowest level in more than 20 years last month, and many areas posted hefty price declines as buyers ran into problems obtaining financing for jumbo mortgages or held off on entering the turbulent housing market.

A total of 19,145 homes were purchased statewide last month, a 41% drop from January 2007’s total and down about 25% from December’s sales, DataQuick said Thursday.

The state has seen sales decline year over year for 28 straight months as the once-booming housing market tanked and a credit crisis forced mortgage lenders to scale back so-called jumbo mortgages, which exceed $417,000.

That has made it harder for buyers to finance higher-end homes and contributed to a steady decline in the state’s median home price. In January, it fell to $383,000, a drop of about 17% from $462,000 a year earlier and down about 5% from December.

The statewide median home price peaked last spring at $484,000.