US housing market deteriorates at faster pace than expected

By Stephen Foley in New York
Published: 26 May 2007

The deterioration in the US housing market is accelerating, new figures showed yesterday, and at a faster rate than Wall Street had been expecting.

With the number of house sales in April down 2.6 per cent on the same month last year, the average selling price for homeowners who do find a buyer has started to fall. And the data contained little evidence to support the economic optimists who argue that the worst is almost over, since the backlog of unsold homes also climbed.