Economists predict existing home sales edged lower in April even though new home sales unexpectedly surged last month. The National Association of Realtors' report on home sales in April is set to be released at 10 a.m. EDT Friday. Existing home sales are expected to drop 0.1 percent from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.12 million units, according to a median estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson Financial. If the monthly report comes in as analysts predict, it would be a nearly 9 percent decline compared with the 6.71 million unit pace in April last year and a drop of 50,000 units from the pace in March. March's results fell 8.4 percent from February, the slowest sales rate since June 2003 and the biggest monthly drop in nearly 20 years. The Commerce Department said Thursday that sales of new homes rose in April by the widest margin in 14 years. But the monthly median price drop was the biggest ever. The mixed signals left no clear picture of whether the worst of the nation's housing slump might be over. Analysts cautioned against reading too much into a one-month sales gain, especially in light of other surveys showing that builders' confidence has sunk in recent months amid worries that problems in the market for homebuyers with poor credit will crimp demand in the months ahead. The soft housing market has been bad news for home improvement chains Home Depot Inc. and Lowe's Cos. Both companies cited fewer people buying homes -- and spending money to fix them up -- as reasons for big drops in first-quarter profits. The NAR said earlier this month that home sales in the first quarter fell 6.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.4 million, compared with 6.9 million in the same quarter a year earlier. The national median existing single-family home price in the first quarter was $212,300, down 1.8 percent from a year ago when the median price was $216,100, the trade group said. The year-over-year decline in median prices in the first quarter, however, was smaller than the 2.7 percent drop posted in the final quarter of 2006.