Triangle home sales were lackluster in May, traditionally one of the strongest selling months of the year, as the fledgling economic recovery continued to limit the number of buyers in the market.
There were 1,524 homes sold in Durham, Johnston, Orange and Wake counties in May, down 27 percent from the same month a year ago, Triangle Multiple Listing Services data show.
Some declines were expected because of the absence of the federal tax credits, but sales were also down 8 percent from the same period two years ago.
There did appear to be more people out looking in May as showings were up 9 percent from the same period a year ago.
Pending sales were down 3 percent.
Concern over the health of the U.S. housing market has grown in recent months with fears that many markets are now experiencing a double-dip in prices.
The average price of all the homes that sold in the Triangle in May was $233,500, down less than one percent from the same period a year ago and off 9 percent from the same period in 2008.
Calculating the exact level of price declines in the Triangle market is difficult, in part because of the lingering impact of the federal tax credits.
The tax credits, which were designed to produce buyers in lower price points, helped skew last year's numbers. Without the tax credits, stronger sales of higher-end homes has helped keep the average sales price up.
The Triangle now has a nine-month supply of homes on the market at the current pace of sales.
The number of existing homes on the market was down 4 percent from the same period a year ago. The number of new homes on the market continued to plummet in May, falling 20 percent to just 2,064.
Business reporter David Bracken came to the N&O in 2004. He covers commercial and residential real estate. Contact David at 919-829-4548 or
Comments
Article Title Creates Anxiety
Tue, 06/14/2011 - 17:32 — Raleigh_ResidentSales figures will be down through Sept 2011 and maybe April 2012(when you compare year over year results). The Home Buyer Tax Credit allowed people to write contracts till end of April 2010 and to close by the end of Sept 2010. This incentive artificially inflated the sales numbers of 2010(through Sept 2010) which means we will have a difficult comparison in 2011. October 2011 sales numbers which will not come out till Nov/Dec will most likely show the first positive sale improvement numbers. The problem with this number is that the Home Buyer Tax Credit pulled in sales figures that would have naturally fallen in Oct 2010 and beyond thus altering the year over year comparisons with Oct 2010. I will be interested to see the April 2012 numbers year over year as this will be six months past the last month people could close with this credit. This break will give us a distance from the drain of sales by the ending credit.
The article title creates anxiety in the general publics mind as most people just scan the titles and maybe the first paragraph. These numbers should have been expected.
Speaking of expected. Anyone
Tue, 06/14/2011 - 18:16 — PhantomLordSpeaking of expected.
Anyone wanna bet when the jobs numbers come out on Thursday that the experts are surprised by the unexpected numbers?
How's that Hope & Change and
Tue, 06/14/2011 - 15:25 — PhantomLordHow's that Hope & Change and Gov. Dumpling working out for ya!
This is great news just in time for Recovery Summer 2.0!
Someone get VP Bite Me on the phone to praise the success!