国际英语新闻：U.S. existing home sales show big rebound

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. existing-home sales bounced back strongly in September with first-time buyers driving much of the activity, marking five gains in the past six months, the U.S. National Association of Realtors (NAR) said in a press release on Friday.

    According to NAR statistics, existing-home sales -- including single-family, town homes, condominiums and co-ops -- jumped 9.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units in September from a level of 5.10 million in August, and were 9.2 percent higher than the 5.10-million-unit pace in September 2008.

    Sales activity is at the highest level in over two years, since it hit 5.73 million in July 2007, the press release said.

    Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, explained that favorable conditions matched with a tax credit are boosting home sales.

    "Much of the momentum is from people responding to the first-time buyer tax credit, which is freeing many sellers to make a trade and buy another home," he said.

    "We are hopeful the tax credit will be extended and possibly expanded to more buyers, at least through the middle of next year, because the rising sales momentum needs to continue for a few additional quarters until we reach a point of a self-sustaining recovery," the economist added.

    Even with the improvement, Yun said the market is underperforming.

    "Despite spectacular gains in the stock market, principally from the financial sector recovery, most of the 75 million home owning families have more wealth tied to their homes. Home values could soon turn consistently positive and help the broad base of middle-class families, but we are not there yet," Yun said.

    "We're getting early indications of price stabilization, but we need a steady supply of qualified buyers to meaningfully bring inventories down and return us to a period of normal, steady price growth and to fully remove consumer fears, which would then revive the broader economy," he said.

    "Without a firm foundation for middle-class wealth recovery, the post-recession economic growth likely will be one of the weakest in U.S. history," the NAR economist noted.