The US housing market remained sluggish last month, latest figures have shown, with sales of existing homes at their lowest level in four years.
Sales fell 0.3% to 5.99 million units in May, the slowest pace of growth since summer 2003, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Sales are now 10% lower than a year ago, when 6.68 million units were sold.
The sharp downturn in the housing market, after years of stellar growth, has shown little sign of bottoming out.
The number of unsold homes rose 5% to 4.43 million units.
Brittle confidence
Lack of confidence in the market has had an impact on the broader state of the US economy, with GDP growth falling to 1.3% in the first three months of the year.
Several experts have lowered their growth forecasts for the whole of 2007, citing the weakness in the housing sector.
The National Association of Business Economists (NABE) cut its forecast for economic growth from 2.8% to 2.3%.
The NAR measures house prices by their median point, the exact spot between the lower and upper half of prices.
The median price of an existing US home is now $223,700 (£119.000), 2.1% less than the midpoint value in May 2006.
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