Poor Home Sales Hit Local Builders

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Shares in local home builders dipped Friday morning when the National Association of Realtors said existing-home sales remained weak in April and inventories of unsold homes continued to swell.


Shares in Los Angeles builder KB Home lost 4.7 percent to $20.51 while Calabasas-based Ryland Group Inc. dropped 5.8 percent to $27.12.


Nationally, the median price dropped 8 percent to $202,300 from a year ago, and sales were down 1 percent from March and 18 percent from a year earlier.


“Because the slowdown in sales from a year ago is greatest in high-cost areas, there is a downward distortion to the national median with relatively more sales in low- and moderate-priced markets,” the realtor’s association said in a statement.


Total housing inventory at the end of April rose 11 percent to 4.6 million vacant homes, the highest level since last summer, with little relief in sight, Wachovia analyst Adam York said in a research report. If no more homes were built across the country, it would take 11.2 months to sell the existing inventory at the current sales pace up from 10 months in March, NAR said.


“We had seen tentative signs of progress the last couple months; these are all but erased,” York said.

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