January home sales in the Baltimore area
Remember the housing market? While we were all buried under snow on Wednesday, January sale statistics came out. Really and for true!
More homes were sold in January than a year earlier in the Baltimore metro area, the eighth straight month of year-over-year increases. Also up: average prices, by about 2 percent.
It's the first time in three years that both indicators rose in tandem, but don't break out the champagne yet, home sellers. The median price -- the midpoint -- was down 2 percent.
You could split the difference and call it flat. Or you could shrug and figure that neither the average nor the median is a guaranteed snapshot of typical sellers' experiences. (The trouble is, the types of homes selling in one month might be different enough from the homes selling in another to skew comparisons.)
The city was alone in seeing a drop in average price -- a whopping 18 percent drop. I took a closer look to see what might be going on and found two trends: Fewer homes selling for $300,000 and up. More homes selling for under $100,000.
It looks like investor buying is playing a role. Last month, 42 percent of the city's home sales were all-cash deals, up from 32 percent a year earlier. But perhaps it's also more first-time home buyers. (Uncle Sam says you have to sign a contract by the end of April and settle by the end of June to qualify for the $8,000.)
The full January home sale story is here.
Want the original numbers? Go here, to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' stats page.
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Comments
From the 42% figure of investors paying cash to purchase, are you able to get more data and show what percentage were short sales, REO's, and resales?
With 58% of purchases being financed (assuming that is correct), let's see how that number will be affected when the Fed stops buying mortgages and the tax credit expires. With higher interest rates, I suspect that 58% number will gradually decline as the 42% number gradually increases.
What many people don't understand is that the distress property sales prefer cash over financing. Not only is financing often difficult to obtain on these property types, the bank selling the property wants a quick sale at the discounted price. As financing becomes more difficult to obtain from higher rates (causing higher debt ratios), investors will play an even bigger role once the subsidies expire. This will cause resale prices to decline further as less people will be qualified for the higher loan amount. With that said, and the future release of shadow inventory that has been held off the market, future price declines should be expected.
Posted by: Frank Rizzo | February 15, 2010 7:03 AM
Frank, the MRIS statistics presented online don't break down the types of home sales by financing. You can see the information directly by clicking on the "stats page" link on the post.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | February 15, 2010 7:15 AM