North Texas home sales continued a downward trend in August, with 10 percent fewer houses changing hands than a year earlier.

The drop was even steeper in the condominium market, where sales were off 17 percent.

Local real estate agents sold 8,480 pre-owned homes last month, the North Texas Real Estate Information System said Friday. Including August’s declines, home sales for the first eight months of 2007 are down about 6 percent in North Texas.

With the recent turmoil in national home mortgage markets, some analysts had expected a steeper decline. But the full impact of the credit crunch won’t be determined right away, real estate agents say.

Home sales prices in North Texas last month out-paced last year’s numbers. The median sales price of houses sold in August was $156,0000 – up 4 percent from the previous year.

While the local housing market has cooled this year, conditions in North Texas still outshine many other parts of the country. In August, there was a seven-month supply of pre-owned homes for sale in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, compared with almost 10 months of inventory nationwide.

More than 49,000 pre-owned homes were listed for sale in North Texas at the end of August, about 5 percent more than were on the market last year.

The condominium market appears to have slowed more in August. The average time it takes to sell a condo in the D-FW area was up more than 30 percent, and the number of units on the market was 11 percent higher than in August 2006.

Pending condo sales are also down 14 percent, compared to a 12 percent drop in pending pre-owned home sales, according to the latest market figures.

Jim Fite, president of Dallas-based Century 21 Judge Fite Realtors, said conditions vary among residential sales firms.

“Some companies seem to be down significantly, while others are down slightly,” Mr. Fite said. “Same with areas” of the city.

Source:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/realestate/stories/DN-resales_08bus.ART0.State.Edition1.35ae052.html