According to the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing homes in August topped 4.1 million, increasing by 7.6 percent compared with July. Although those numbers were still 19 percent below August of last year, the NAR called it part of a slow recovery.
"Home values have shown stabilizing trends over the past year, even as the economy shed millions of jobs, because of the homebuyer tax credit stimulus. Now that the economy is adding some jobs, the housing market needs to steadily improve and eventually stand on its own," said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.
Despite lower sales numbers, the average selling price remained higher than the same time last year. The median home sales price last month was $178,600.
Likely helping to spur the movement are interest rates that remain near record lows. Freddie Mac's latest release said that interest rates on a standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had remained at 4.37 percent.
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