2009 Local Home Sales in Review
It’s over – done – finished – kaput and will go down in the books as a very dismal year for local home sales and pricing! The number of homes sold in 2009 dropped 6.9% from the previous year to a total of 2,907 which is off almost 30% from the peak of 4,100 sales just five years ago and the lowest total since 1995. The 4.6% drop in average selling price is just the second decline since our records started in 1976 but the other was just the previous year when prices dropped 1% from 2007 to 2008. So there have been two price declines in a row and the current average selling price of $239,387 means that there has been less than 4% total appreciation in the last five years.
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Now for the good news! Sales in the last quarter of the year were up 28%, albeit compared to 2008 when sales were down 18% from the previous year. Still, it put the brakes on double digit percentage decreases we experienced for much of 2008 and 2009. At the end of September 2009 sales were down 14.6% and on a pace for maybe 2,600 to 2,700 sales for the year so the results in October and November were particularly gratifying. Fourth quarter sales were heavily weighted to lower priced homes, mainly due to the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit which was due to expire November 30, 2009. Sales of homes priced under $250,000 were up 36% compared to the same quarter last year and accounted for two thirds of all home sales.
The median selling price for the year was down 4.5% to $210,000 so this was right in line with decrease in the average selling price. The home sales that closed in December were on the market for an average of 130 days which is up substantially from the 119 day figure for November sales but the final figure for 2009 was 113 days compared to 112 days last year. The number of active listings took a big drop with just 1,372 homes on the market at the end of December, down from 1,539 at the end of November and the 1,499 homes on the market at the end of 2008.
More good news is that the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit has been extended to include homes placed under contract by April 30, 2010 and closed by June 30, 2010 plus there is now a $6,500 tax credit available to qualified repeat home buyers. Add to this 30 year fixed mortgage rates that are still near 5% and prices that have not shown any appreciation for several years and this has to be the right time to be a home buyer. You have heard the old adage ‘what goes up must come down’ but we think it also works in reverse, particularly in real estate, so how about ‘what goes down must go up’ and, in this market, we believe that is going to happen sooner rather than later. For more information on how to get started and for details on the available home buyer tax credits, call a real estate professional today.
In our January 17, 2010 column we will take a more in depth look at previous sales activity and see if the past can tell us anything about the future.