Home Sales Climb but at a sluggish pace- median home price off 17% from a year ago.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose modestly from April to May, the third monthly increase this year.

The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that home sales rose 2.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million.

About one out of every three homes sold was a foreclosure or distressed/short sale. That helped drag down the median price to $173,000 - 16.8 percent below a year ago. Falling prices coupled with new rules for property appraisers have caused many transactions to fall apart or be delayed.

There has been a huge amount of telephone calls from clients about appraisal problems.

Home sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 4.81 million units.

One bright spot, however, was that the number of unsold homes on the market at the end of May fell 3.5 percent to nearly 3.8 million. That's a 9.6 month supply at the current sales pace.