欧美文化:U.S. homes sales drop to 14-year low in June

NEW YORK, July 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. home sales dropped to a 14-year-low in June as the shortage of supply choked the housing market.

Existing home sales fell 3.3 percent in June from May, running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.16 million units, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said in a report on Thursday.

It was a 18.9 percent decline from a year ago, marking the slowest sales pace for June since 2009.

The drop in home sales was largely due to the dearth of inventory. Some 1.08 million homes remained on the market by the end of June, down 13.6 percent from a year earlier, the NAR said.

According to the NAR's estimate, at the current rate of sales, the United States has 3.1 months of housing inventory left on the market.

Meanwhile, low inventory has pushed up home prices to remain at a high level, as the demand outpaces the supply.

The U.S. median price of an existing home sold in June was 410,200 U.S. dollars, the second-highest price recorded by the NAR. It was just 1 percent lower than the all-time-high of 413,800 dollars in June last year.

The U.S. housing market has yet recovered from a plunge over a year ago, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage started to climb from the lowest levels as the Federal Reserve began its rate hikes.

Experts believe that housing sales are unlikely to rebound any soon, as mortgage rates weigh heavy on buyers' affordability.