INSTANT VIEW: Decemberexisting home sales off more than expected

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of existing home sales in the United States fell by 2.2 percent in December to a slower-than-expected 4.89 million-unit annual rate, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Thursday.

KEY POINTS: * For all of 2007, existing home sales fell 12.8 percent and the national median home price fell by 1.4 percent to $218,900. It was the first annual decline in the median home price since 1999, when the realtor group began tracking both condos and single-family home data together.

COMMENTS:

KIM RUPERT, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL FIXED INCOME

ANALYSIS, ACTION ECONOMICS LLC, SAN FRANCISCO:

"It looks like maybe it was not as weak as some in the market were expecting. Housing is in such a crisis state some were looking for an even weaker number. The medians don't always tell what the whisper number might be or what the risk is. People are still kind of unwinding the Fed trade and the big equity mess from the beginning of the week.

"After the Fed cut rates on Tuesday the market priced in another 75 basis point cut to some extent. Treasuries have been unwinding that move as maybe the fact that equity weakness might have been in part a function of problems at Soc Gen and not necessarily a function of the whole subprime mess and further problems there. The Fed might not be easing as aggressively as the market expected presuming that the weakness in stocks was more inherent to the current problems. But it's been wild out there."

MICHAEL METZ, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, OPPENHEIMER &

CO., NEW YORK:

"The consumer's balance sheet is being hurt by the erosion of his major assets, the stock portfolio and his residence, and this I think is going to be a drag on consumer spending and confidence for at least the balance of the year. I think we have further to go to flesh out the problems in the housing industry."

SAM RAHMAN, PORTFOLIO MANAGER AT BARING ASSET MANAGEMENT

INC IN BOSTON:

"I don't know what's so surprising in this data. I think there's a couple of key things people looking for going forward including what the spring selling season looks like and what that will mean for the inventory levels. If that spring selling season is weak there will pressure on the homebuilders to liquidate inventory and that will likely put pressure on prices."

RICHARD DEKASER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, NATIONAL CITY CORP.,

CLEVELAND:

"The evidence is that we are scraping the bottom in terms of total home sales. Clearly the precipitous decline driven by the shutdown of the private-label mortgage market is winding down. That had a devastating effect on sales. It's not to say we can't get more decline. The prospect of further decline is more remote.