St. Louis Real Estate Market shows signs of stabilizing

Dennis Norman

We are long overdue for some good news on the St. Louis housing market and data from December home sales brought just that. Based upon my comparision of homes sold in December 2009 with the year prior, it appears to me the St. Louis housing market may have found it’s bottom and now be starting to level off.

There are still disturbing aspects of the data, like the fact that for the St. Louis metro area there were almost 8 percent fewer homes sold in December 2009 than in December 2008 but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The median price of homes sold increased almost 4 percent last month from the year before and the median as well as average time to sell a home both decreased, by 22.54 percent and 10.31 percent respectively.

Another interesting piece of data is that the median list price of the homes sold last month increased 3.71 percent from a year ago, which is almost identical to the amount the sales price increased in the same period. This coupled with the fact that homes continue to sell for about 95 percent of list price indicates that sellers (and listing agents) are being fairly realistic in terms of list price.

“One month does not a trend make”, but hopefully we are on our way to more positive news on the St. Louis housing market.

St Louis Missouri home sale data for December 2009 vs December 2008

Home prices down 30 percent since peak in 2005 and trend is downward

Dennis Norman
Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

I came across an interesting chart that I want to share. The chart below, courtesy of Chart of the Day, shows median home prices in the U.S. since 1970 (adjusted for inflation). As you can see from the chart, home prices trended upward from 1970 until peaking in the late 70’s (right around 1979 when I got into real estate, great timing on my part!) and then began dropping until the mid 80’s when prices began a rather rocky and unsteady climb upward.

As the chart illustrates, median home prices really started increasing, and at a more rapid rate, around 1991 and continued until 2005, basically the peak of the market. Since 2005 the trend has been downward to the point where median home prices have fallen about 30 percent from the peak. Continue reading “Home prices down 30 percent since peak in 2005 and trend is downward

Home sales and prices increase in Midwest in June

Dennis Norman

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

The National Association of REALTORS(R) released its existing home sales report for June showing an increase in sales for the 3rd month in a row as well as higher prices in June.

Existing home sales, including single-family, town-homes, condominiums and co-ops increased 3.6% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units. This rate is almost identical to last years sales at the same time which is a first in a quite a while. May’s rate was down 3.6% from a year ago and June is down just 0.2% from a year ago.

Here in the Midwest sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.1 million homes.  This is a modest 0.9% increase over May and is 1.8% below the same time last year. 

Median home prices in the U.S. rose 4% from $174,700 for May to $181,800 for June which is down 15.4% from a year before.  For the Midwest the median home price for June increased almost $10,000 from May to $157,000 which represents a drop of slightly over 9% in the past year.  Continue reading “Home sales and prices increase in Midwest in June