The National Association of Realtors said on Monday existing home sales dropped 1.8 percent to an annual rate of 5.05 million units. The decline followed four straight months of gains and the sales pace was still the second highest for the year. “We continue to expect the housing recovery to be sustained, and we look for the pace of sales activity to pick-up in the coming months” said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.