US Real Estate

A real-estate industry trade group said Wednesday it expects sales of existing homes in the U.S. to drop 4.6 percent this year to 6.2 million. Two months ago, the National Association of Realtors had predicted a 2.2 percent decline for the year. Sales of new homes are forecast to drop 18.2 percent to 860,000 compared with an earlier estimate of a 14.2 percent decline. The NAR also predicts the median price of existing homes, which make up about 85 percent of the market, will fall 1.3 percent in 2007, the first dip since the 1960s, when the group began keeping records. Next year, though, the NAR expects the market to rebound.