The issue: Housing numbers, if they hold, are a promising start to better days ahead

One of the defining features of the Great Recession of 2008 was the crash in the housing market, and it was a truism to say that the economic recovery wouldn’t be complete until housing was once again healthy.

THAT MOMENT may not have precisely arrived but, if the latest figures on housing and home sales are any indication, that moment is in sight.

Sales of existing homes were up 3.4 percent in April over March and up 10 percent from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.6 million, also up 10 percent from a year ago.

Also encouraging was that the percentage of distressed sales — foreclosures or houses selling for less than the amount of their outstanding mortgages — were 28 percent of sales in April, down from 37 percent a year ago. That overhang of distressed properties has tended to depress home prices.

Sales were up across the country, and the inventory of existing homes for sale is down 21 percent from April a year ago. Tighter inventories mean higher prices. That’s good news for homeowners looking to sell. For would-be homebuyers, the picture is mixed. Mortgage rates are at record lows but banks’ pickiness at whom to lend to appears to be a record high.

The median sale price was $177,400, the first consecutive month of increases since the summer of 2010.

MEANWHILE, the Commerce Department reported new home sales increased 3.3 percent from March to April, a seasonally adjusted rate of 343,000, with sales up sharply — 28 percent — in the Midwest and West but down 10.6 percent in the South.

The median price was up slightly for the month, to $235,700.

As the Associated Press points out, new home construction has an outsize effect on the economy because of the jobs and the tax revenue they generate.

The economy is improving — unemployment is 8.1 percent, down a full percentage point from last August — but the question is whether it’s improving fast enough to save President Barack Obama’s job. The housing numbers, if they hold, are a promising start.

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