The National Association of Realtors has released its February numbers.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – rose 2.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (1) of 5.03 million units in February from a pace of 4.89 million in January, but remain 23.8 percent below the 6.60 million-unit level in February 2007.  The sales pace has been in a fairly narrow range since last September.

That is reasonably good news given recent developments.

The national median existing-home price (2) for all housing types was $195,900 in February, down 8.2 percent from a year earlier when the median was $213,500. 

Not good, but the market is beginning to find a clearing level. The top chart below shows that national inventory has declined somewhat from January, but we expect that will expand again for the spring selling season. The second chart shows increasing sales and the third shows a slightly declining months of supply. Again, all mildly good news nationally. Thanks as always to the good folks at Calculated Risk for the charts.

What is the impact of all this on Maui real estate? Not huge, but some good press never hurts.