More U.S. sellers testing market: report

Rising prices are spurring more sellers to list homes in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. In April, the number of homes listed nationally rose 8 percent year-over-year, according to a report that covered 24 American metro areas from ZipRealty, an Emeryville, Calif.-based real estate brokerage.

And the report found other reasons for optimism for the residential real estate market: more homes were listed than sold in April and the average time a home sat on the market plummeted to 32 days, from 48 year-over-year.

Seller momentum is picking up nationally, Lanny Baker, CEO of ZipRealty, told the Journal.

“A market in which the sale prices are happening very close to the list prices, a market in which the list prices seem to be moving sequentially higher, and a market in which any of those houses are selling speedily is one that is bringing sellers back,” Baker said. “That makes it feel to a seller that this isn’t going to be a long passive despair that I tried three years ago.”

However, of the 24 areas the report looked at, the Long Island market was the weakest, with homes selling, on average, for 95.3 percent of their list price. In other markets average sales prices were on par with or over list price, the Journal said. [WSJ] –Guelda Voien