Home sales up; Realtors revise '07-'10 data

WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans who bought previously occupied homes rose last month. But the National Association of Realtors says it overstated sales by about 3.5 million during and after the Great Recession, showing the housing market remains much weaker than previously thought.

The private trade group says sales rose 4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42 million. That's below the roughly 6 million sales a year that economists say are consistent with a healthy housing market. But it's ahead of 2008's revised sales, now considered the worst in 13 years.

The nearly 4.2 million homes sold last year are far below the nearly 7.1 million sold at the peak of the housing boom in 2005. This year is on pace to slightly exceed last year's total.

Sales figures were revised to 4.19 million for 2010, down 15 percent from a prior estimate of 4.91 million. Sales were trimmed by 16 percent for 2009, by 16 percent for 2008 and by 11 percent for 2007.

Among the reasons for the lower figures, the Realtors group says, are changes in the way the Census Bureau collects data, population shifts and some sales being counted twice.

The sharp revisions could cast doubt on future sales numbers from the Realtors' group, a private trade organization that lobbies on behalf of its 1.2 million members.

John Ryding, an economist at RDQ Economics, called the revisions "massive" and cited them as an example of how economic data can be unreliable.

The Realtors' group said it trusts its new figures, which were checked by government agencies and CoreLogic, the California-based real estate data firm that first raised questions about the numbers earlier this year.

Other economists said the lower numbers won't necessarily matter, because sales are up and fewer homes are sitting idle waiting for buyers.