Sales of existing homes climb to record high in 2004

National median sales price jumps to $184,100

? Sales of previously owned homes rose 9.4 percent to an all-time high of 6.68 million units last year while the median price of those homes rose at the fastest clip in 24 years, a real estate trade group said Tuesday.

The National Association of Realtors said that it marked the fourth straight year that home resales had set a record, reflecting a boom in housing generated by some of the lowest mortgage rates in four decades.

The median sales price of an existing home rose to $184,100 last year, up 8.3 percent from 2003 and the fastest gain since home prices jumped by 11.7 percent in 1980.

Sales of new homes also are expected to set a record when the government releases December data Monday.

Analysts are predicting the housing market will cool off a bit in 2005 as mortgage rates rise in response to a credit tightening campaign by the Federal Reserve, which began boosting interest rates last June in an effort to ward off inflationary pressures.

Home sales in December dipped 3.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.69 million units. However, that decline came off a monthly record of 6.92 million units at an annual rate set in November.

Housing has been the all-star performer in the current recovery as buyers have enjoyed low mortgage rates.

Last year’s sales of new and existing homes in Douglas County failed to reach records set in 2003, according to the Douglas County Appraiser’s Office.Douglas County had 2,058 sales, down seven from a year earlier. The average sale price was $177,458, up 5 percent. Lawrence had 1,610 sales last year, four fewer than in 2003. The average price paid was $180,526, up 4.2 percent.Real estate officials attributed much of the decline to a relative scarcity of new homes available in 2004, a market that began to loosen up late last year.

Even with the Fed’s rate increases last year, 30-year mortgages averaged 5.84 percent for all of 2004, up only slightly from an average of 5.83 in 2003, which was the lowest annual average ever recorded on a Freddie Mac survey that goes back to 1971.

David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors association, said he believed that rates for 30-year mortgages, which have been falling the past three weeks and currently stand at 5.67 percent, gradually would rise to 6.5 percent by the end of 2005, an increase that he would expect to trim sales of existing homes by about 3 percent to 6.48 million units.