THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, August 4, 1994               TAG: 9408040584
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: D3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY JOHN D. MCCLAIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Medium:   54 lines

HOME SALES RISE DESPITE HIGHER RATES DEMAND DROVE PRICES MODERATELY HIGHER IN MANY AREAS DURING THE SECOND QUARTER.

Although mortgage rates were rising, Americans kept buying homes during the April-June quarter, driving prices up moderately in many areas of the nation, a real estate trade group said Wednesday.

The National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes rose 13.6 percent over the same quarter of 1993, to a 4.5 million annual rate.

Sales rose in 44 states and the District of Columbia, ranging from 1.1 percent in Oklahoma to 34.1 percent in New Hampshire. Every region posted gains, including double-digit advances in the Northeast, South and West.

The Realtors said the increased demand helped boost the national median price 3.3 percent over the period, to $110,600. The median is the midpoint, meaning half of the homes cost more and half cost less.

Despite higher mortgage rates, financing remained sufficiently affordable to attract buyers, Realtors President Robert H. Elrod said.

Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 8.45 percent during the April-June quarter, up from 7.30 percent in the first quarter, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Rates ranged in the double digits during much of the 1980s.

The Realtors survey found the price increases to be moderate in many areas, although there were occasional spikes in some markets.

Homeowners in Salt Lake City, for instance, saw the median price of their homes jump 16.7 percent, to $95,600. The median price in Madison, Wis., shot up 15.1 percent, to $115,100.

But the median price fell 8.1 percent in Topeka, Kan., to $63,500, and 7.7 percent in Trenton, N.J., to $129,800.

Honolulu had the most expensive homes, with a median price of $365,000, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls area of Iowa had the least expensive, $51,700, a 3.1 percent increase.

The survey covered median prices for single-family detached and attached existing homes in 135 metropolitan statistical areas.

The Realtors found that prices in the Midwest continued a steady pattern of moderate increases, boosting the median price 2.7 percent from a year earlier, to $88,000.

The South, an area with a large supply of affordable housing, experienced a 3.3 percent median price increase, to $98,100.

KEYWORDS: REAL ESTATE SALES

by CNB