The NAR published their monthly existing home sales report on Friday which showed that home sales rose 7.2% in July from June on a seasonally adjusted rate and are up 5% from last year at this same time. 

This is clearly good news as the real estate market needs a massive increase in demand in order to absorb the excess supply of homes that is sitting on the market as well as the foreclosures that are about to hit the market. 

The interesting statistic within the report that didn't make the headlines but is just as relevant is that housing inventory, the number of homes for sale, also rose 7.3% from last month.  This could be the first indicator that the foreclosures that were held back by the moratoriums that expired in March, may slowly be making their way to the market.  Typically there is a delay in time from when a property is actually foreclosed on to when it goes back up for sale.

The "net" result is that the month's supply of housing, which represents the relationship between supply and demand, remains unchanged from the previous month with a 9.4 month supply.  This month's supply still indicates that home prices are going lower.

As I have written about before, while these increases in home sales are good, they are insufficientin dealing with the number of foreclosures coming to the market.  According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings set a new record in July and are up 32% year over year.