Abogados de Inmigracion

The trade group also reported that the for-sale inventory of single-family homes reached 10.2 months in September, which was the highest level since February 1988 when it was 10.3 months. The inventory is a measure of how many months it would take to exhaust the for-sale supply of resale single-family homes at the current sales rate.

Total housing inventory, for single-family homes, condos and co-ops reached 10.5 months in September, which is up 43.5 percent compared to a 7.3-month inventory in September 2006.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of existing single-family, condo and co-op sales dropped to 5.04 million in September, down 19.1 percent compared to September 2006 and down 4 percent compared to Wall Street expectations of a 5.25 million rate. The adjusted annual rate is a projection of a monthly sales total over a 12-month period, adjusted to account for seasonal fluctuations in sales activity.

It was the lowest rate for combined resale single-family and condo/co-op sales since the National Association of Realtors began reporting the property types together in 1999. The September single-family rate of 4.38 million was the lowest since January 1998, when it was 4.18 million.

The median sales price of existing homes dropped 4.2 percent to $211,700 and the average sales price dropped 3.2 percent to $257,800 in September compared to the same month last year, the Realtor group reported. It was the largest year-over-year drop in the monthly median price since October 2006 when the median price fell 4.3 percent.

Mortgage-market problems disrupted sales and prices, the National Association of Realtors reported, though prices rose in the Northeast and Midwest.

Existing-home sales for the third quarter reached an annual rate of 5.42 million, slightly higher than the group's expectations of a 5.38 million annual rate for that quarter.