- Dennis Norman
The National Association of REALTORS Pending Home Sales Index for January shows a decrease of 2.8 percent in the index from the month before (seasonally adjusted), and a 1.5 percent decrease from a year ago. The good news however is that the St. Louis area (five-county area including city of St. Louis and counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) saw a 1.51 percent in pending home sales in January from the month before and a 3.30 percent increase from a year ago.
As the table below shows, with the exception of the City of St. Louis (which just can’t seem to catch a break nowadays) all the counties in the St. Louis area saw a month-over-month increase in pending home sales with Franklin County leading the way with a 10.91 percent increase. In addition, three of the five counties saw a year-over-year increase in pending home sales for January, again with Franklin County being the leader with a whopping 45.24 percent increase. (what’s your secret Franklin County??)
Here are highlights from the National Association of REALTORS pending home sales report for January 2011:
- The pending home sales index for the U.S.(seasonally adjusted) was 88.9 (the index is based upon 100.0 being equal to the average level of sales activity in 2001 which we could call the last “normal” year) which is a 2.8 percent decrease from the month before and a 1.5 percent decrease from a year ago.
- The”not-seasonally adjusted” index index was 17.0, a 16.2 percent increase from the month before and a 4.4 percent decrease from a year ago.
- The South region was the only region that had a month-over-month increase with a 1.4 percent increase (seasonally adjusted). The Midwest had the largest month-over-month decrease with a 7.3 percent decrease, followed by the West with a 5.2 percent decrease and the Northeast with a 2.4 percent decrease.
- All regions saw year over year declines.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS points to the broader trend. “The housing market is healing with sales fluctuating at times, depending on the flow of distressed properties coming on the market,” he said.
“While home buyers over the past two years have been exceptionally successful with historically low default rates, there is still an elevated level of shadow inventory of distressed homes from past lending mistakes that need to go through the system,” Yun said. “We should not expect the recovery to be in a straight upward path — it will zig-zag at times.”
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