A third consecutive spring market report has May home prices rising in the wake of the double dip reported by S&P/Case-Shiller in the first quarter.

In a national survey of real estate practitioners, REAL Trends’ Housing Market Report says May sales are showing surprising strength, increasing from 4.730 million in April 2011to 4.860 million in May 2011. On a year over year basis, May home sales declined 8.6 percent compared to the May 2010 rate of 5.318 million.

The average price of homes sold continued to increase in May 2011 with a 1.5 percent increase over April. This follows an increase of 1.2 percent in average home sales price in March of 2011 over the same period the year before and represents three consecutive months of increases in the average prices of homes sold.

“The May 2011 REAL Trends Housing Report shows that housing sales show surprising strength considering the tough economic climate and comparisons to year ago sales that were significantly boosted by the 2010 tax credit program. A significant part of the decline as measured on a year over year basis is due to the Federal tax credit which significantly raised housing sales in the March through June period of 2010,” said Steve Murray, editor of the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. “The fact that the actual average price of home sales has now increased two months in a row, despite numerous analytic reports to the contrary is another bright spot in a housing market that seems to have found the bottom.”

Previously, Clear Capital and Altos have reported price improvement since the first quarter.  The National Association of Realtors reported that national median existing-home price for all housing types was 5.0 percent below April 2010.

The monthly REAL Trends Housing Market Report tracks sales from real estate brokerage firms on a national basis.

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