Used-Home Sales Slowed By Weather

Adverse weather and rising mortgage rates curbed sales of existing homes in March, but a trade group predicted sales for the year would approach the record set in 1996.

Sales of single-family homes slipped 2.8 percent to a still-healthy seasonally adjusted 4.11 million annual rate, the National Association of Realtors said Friday.

The Northeast posted the only regional gain.

But although the February rate was revised to 4.23 million, down from an initial 4.26 million estimate, the pace remained second only to the record 4.28 million last May.

And without the snow and floods, analysts said, March sales would have been even stronger.

Regionally, sales rose 1.6 percent in the Northeast to a 640,000 annual rate. They were unchanged at 1.53 million in the South.

But sales plunged 8.3 percent in the waterlogged Midwest to a 1 million annual rate and fell 5.1 percent in the West to 930,000.