Housing Prices and Existing-Home Sales Rise in April

In another positive sign for the housing market, existing-home sales and home prices posted increases in April, the National Association of Realtors says.

Existing home sales rose 3.4 percent month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million in April, which is 10 percent above last year's April estimate, the NAR says. And for the second month in a row, the national median existing-home price -- which was $177,400 in April -- posted an annual increase of 10.1 percent in April.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement that a contracting supply of bank-owned homes, homes in a state of foreclosure, homes at risk of foreclosure and shrinking foreclosure sales were helping to spur a recovery. The analytics firm CoreLogic recently released data showing that the foreclosure supply had fallen from 1.5 million to 1.4 million in March 2012.