Md. spring home sales post one of nation's largest increases

Jamie Smith Hopkins

Maryland had one of the nation's largest increases in spring home sales, according to numbers released Wednesday morning by the National Association of Realtors.

Home sales from April to June were up 4.4 percent compared with a year ago, the ninth-biggest increase in the country, the trade group said. And sales jumped about 15 percent from the previous three months, topping all but six other states and Washington, D.C. The numbers are adjusted to try to account for typical seasonal variations in buying and selling.

In the spring of last year, by contrast, home sales in Maryland were falling at one of the quickest paces nationwide -- down 30 percent.

Maryland's Washington suburbs drove the spring turnaround. But the Baltimore metro area, which was seeing falling sales at the beginning of the spring, posted a small gain in June and has since picked up the pace.

Other figures from the national trade group show median prices falling almost 10 percent for single-family homes in the Baltimore metro area, compared with a year earlier.

Prices in the Cumberland metro area in Western Maryland rose about 22 percent, the second-biggest increase in the nation.