A quick glance at the chart below says all you need to know: home sales are off, and that’s been the trend since early in the year. What’s playing out locally only reflects what’s taking place merely reflects the national scene, and national trends may be doing most to shape the local market as well. National media still talking up the weak housing market, Wall St. in a spin, banks tight with credit.
What’s selling mostly are properties immune from such trends; they’ve the appeal to sell in any market. Average selling price in August was way up, days on market was down compared with a year ago. That said, keep in mind when sales are so slow a couple of sales can skew the trends, easily upping or lowering averages.
Anyway, for August: RealTracs reports 12 homes listed in our MLS sold in the country at an average selling price of $210, 664. Actual unit sales were off 48 percent, compared with August 2007, while average closing price climbed nearly 27 percent. In August 2007 there were 23 closings, and an average sales price of $154,626.
Sluggish sales continue to define the year overall. To date, home sales in DeKalb County have been off 35 percent compared with the first eight months of 2007. There were 179 homes sold by this time last year, 118 by the end of August 2008. The number of listings has increased, as well: 225 average per day this year, compared with 200 throughout August of 2007.
As far as land goes, August saw land sales succumb to the same influences shaping residential market most of the year. August sales were off 43 percent, with eight sales last month,compared with 14 a year ago. There’s a lot of inventory: 627 active listings of land, lots and farms each day last month, compared with the 507 daily average August 2007. Year-to-date land sales continue to hold their own, however. Total sales for 2008 are running ahead of last year, with 89 sales this year, compared with 81 through August last year.
The market has slowed but it hasn’t stopped. There’s always buyers for the right property, properly priced and promoted.
Monday, September 15, 2008
A Quick Look at Home Sales
As an experiment, I created this chart to see how it would help. CLick on it so you can see what it says
The lines, as indicated, show trends in home sales in DeKalb County for the last three years, by the month.
More in the follow-up post
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