Overall residential unit sales dropped significantly in September and were down 18.5%. Single family home sales fell 22.9% and condo sales dipped by 11.2% compared to September 2009. The market is still taking a breather after all the sales related to the tax credit. All residential listings were up slightly – about a 3% increase. Single family listings increased by 6% and condo listings dropped again by 3% when compared to last year at this time.
The median price for single family homes declined to $130,000, a decrease of 5.1% while condo median price at $114,000 fell by 11.3% from September 2009.
The bright spot this month are the pending contracts – they rose by 10.6% over the September 2009 level. This is the third month of steady growth in this status. Tempering that news there was a 5.2% growth in contracts written for single family homes and a leap of 20.4% for condos, again both due to three months of steady growth after the tax credit fall-off.
Bank owned properties and short sales make up 57% of all the single family pending contracts written in September, while 47% of condo pending contracts were bank owned. Single family bank owned sales reached 52% and 37% for condos. Of the homes available for sale in September, 39% of the single family homes and 27% of condos were bank owned. Finally going forward 44% of the single family new listings and 37% of the condo new listings in September were bank owned.
Right now we’re all waiting to see what impact the foreclosure debacle will have on closings coming up. It could make potential buyers jittery about making offers on foreclosed homes and will probably delay closings while lenders and title companies figure out how to handle the situation. The pending numbers seem to indicate the market is moving again, so we certainly did not need another crisis.
Click Here to view the September 2010 analysis