Despite 19% September drop in pre-owned market, prices increase
Author: Cadman
Category: Real Estate
North Texas home sales plunged in September.
The 19 percent drop in sales of pre-owned homes was the largest annual decline in more than seven years.
But even with the slide in sales, area home prices stayed positive – up 3 percent for the month.
Local real estate agents sold only 6,031 pre-owned homes last month, according to statistics released Monday by the North Texas Real Estate Information System.
That’s a big falloff from August’s 8,480 sales and the lowest monthly total since February.
Although home sales traditionally slow in September after the busy summer season, the decline this year was sharper than usual. Plus sales were down in almost every part of the region.
September’s dip in home sales coincides with the mortgage market crunch, which made headlines starting in early August. Since then, lenders have significantly increased mortgage requirements and curtailed some loan products.
“The tightened mortgage market has forced some buyers, especially first-time or easy credit-dependent buyers, out of the market,” said Jim Gaines, an economist with Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center.
Dr. Gaines said this change “reflects a reversion to market norms rather than the sky falling.”
Real estate agent Bob Edmonson of Allie Beth Allman & Associates said some “buyers have been scared off, thinking that either they won’t be able to qualify or home prices may go lower.”
“I wonder just how many people are incapable of obtaining a mortgage now vs. how many think they can’t get a mortgage,” he said.
Demand for higher priced homes outperformed demand in the overall market, with sales of homes priced above $400,000 showing year-over-year gains for the month.
“I work in middle and upper price ranges, and we haven’t been impacted as much,” said Ken Harrell of Weichert Realtors All Points Properties. “The lower-end markets are struggling a little bit.”
At the end of September, almost 49,000 pre-owned single-family homes were for sale in North Texas, an increase of about 4 percent from a year earlier. That works out to about a 6.5-month supply.
On average, it took 74 days to sell a house listed in the Realtors’ multiple listing service.
Median home prices have risen slightly in 2007, despite the downturn in sales.
In September, the median home price in North Texas was $147,500. So far this year, area home sales prices are up 1 percent.
Through the first nine months of 2007, pre-owned home sales are down 6 percent.
The outlook for October sales isn’t promising. At the start of the month, the number of pending home sales in the pipeline was down 17 percent.
Source:
investment property
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