Sluggish start for spring homebuying season as home sales fall in March with mortgage rates rising

The spring homebuying season is off to a sluggish start as home shoppers contend with elevated mortgage rates and rising prices. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell 4.3% in March from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the first monthly decline in sales since December and follows a nearly 10% monthly sales jump in February. Existing home sales also fell 3.7% compared with March last year. The latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.16 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Home prices climbed compared with a year earlier for the ninth month in a row.