The Single Family Home Market in October

Matching the greyish economic mood in large parts of the country, October numbers for single family homes are a dull story.

While the number of houses lingering on the market didn’t budge much, the number of closed sales dropped quite a bit month-over-month, 20 percent to be exact. That of course results in rising home inventory (though not in the modernist market!).

Interesting is that despite the lack of movement, neither listing nor selling prices changed – stubborness or lack of maneuvering room, due to having reached the bottom already?

As some media point to increased pending sales, remember my previous warning about that number: it means nothing. I see quite a few transactions going in and out of contract more than once, an abnormaly several years ago. So for now, I will disregard pending sales alltogether.

The numbers for all Single Family Homes in the three counties:

• Houses for sale: 20,355  (-1.1%)
• Inventory (Mo): 7.4  (24.3%)
• Median list price: $300,000  (0.1%)
• Median list price per sf: $144  (100.2%)
• Houses sold last month:    2,756  (-20.2%)
• Median selling price: $178,300     (0.1%)
• Median selling price per sf: $97  (-2.7%)

Table: all regional single family homes for sale/sold; data per last month’s end. Changes are month-over-month. – Chart: SFH data October 2010 to October 2011. Red: median list price, green: median selling price, blue: inventory in months. – Data source: SEF-MLS

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