INSTANT VIEW: U.S. existing home sales pace falls in April

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of existing home sales in the United States fell 1 percent in April to a 4.89 million-unit annual rate, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Friday that was slightly better than expectations.

KEY POINTS: * Inventories of unsold homes rose measurably, surging 10.5 percent to 4.55 million units at the end of April. At the current sales pace that would put the supply of homes at 11.2 months' worth, the highest level since the association began tracking single family and condo properties together in 1999. * For single family homes, at the current sales pace there were 10.7 months' worth, the biggest supply since June 1985 when it stood at 11.4 months.

COMMENTS:

WARREN SIMPSON, MANAGING DIRECTOR, STEPHENS CAPITAL

MANAGEMENT, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS:

"I think this existing home sales number is pretty neutral. It's still not great. The main thing is where is the bottom, here? I think between oil and housing its going to take a while for the market to be able to go up again."

BRIAN STINE, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER, ALLEGIANT ASSET

MANAGEMENT, CLEVELAND:

"It may be a slight positive. We've been close to unchanged over the last five or six months. We haven't seen the steep declines that we experienced last year. It's too early to say for sure but we could be getting to the bottom in terms of housing"

MICHAEL WOOLFOLK, SENIOR CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF NEW YORK

MELLON, NEW YORK:

"The report was slightly better than expected. We can't say the housing markets is picking up, but certainly the pace of the decline is slowing down. For the dollar, this is somewhat positive, especially when combined with poor data that came out of Europe earlier today. Still, the focus in the forex market seems to be shifting to oil and ahead of a holiday in the U.S., trading seems to be very thin. Bottom line, we might not see much of a rebound in the greenback today on the housing data."

MARKET REACTION: * BONDS: U.S. Treasury debt prices pare gains * CURRENCIES: U.S. dollar pares losses * STOCKS: U.S. equity indexes pare losses * RATE FUTURES: U.S. short-term interest rate futures hold steady, pricing in an 10 percent probability of a 25 basis point rate cut at the Fed's June meeting.