April hasn’t seen more than 200 residential home sales since 2008, when 214 homes were sold. Even still, this past April marks the most the month has seen in years, with 237 homes being sold—well over that of April 2008. This was over a thirty percent increase from this past March, which ended up having 182 sales. This is a big difference—a difference of fifty-five homes, to be exact. It was also almost a forty-five percent increase from the prior April, in 2012, which left off with 164 sales.
Over the past four years, 10,462 homes have been sold. The homes sold in the past twelve months, which amount to 2,680, make up a little more than a quarter of these total sales. This is the highest number of sales in a twelve-month span since the year beginning May 2009, which saw 2,874 total sales due to the $8,000 tax credit.
Looking at the data from the past years, it seemed characteristic of home sales to decrease from March to April, as they had been doing since 2009. This year, they decided to swim against the tide and shoot up. This one number, 237, could indicate an improving market, but let’s take a look at some of the other factors which could be of influence.
The number of homes on the market has been staying around the high 2200s and low 2300s since January of this year, with 2281 homes on the market in April of 2013. As we deduced last month, the real estate market has a short supply of homes for sale. This is the lowest number of homes seen on the market in a number of years.
In March, the number of days a home spent on the market averaged at 234 days. That number greatly decreased in April, by roughly twenty percent, to 187 cumulative days. This is around where it was last year, where homes spent an average of 185 days on the market.
These two numbers, the number of homes and the market and the days spent on the market, both affect the month’s inventory, which calculates how many months it would take for all of the homes on the market to sell. This past April saw 9.62 as the number of months it would take to sell the homes. In March of 2013, the estimate was 12.54 months, which means that the estimation decreased by over twenty-three percent. Compared to April of 2012, where it was estimated that it would take 18.1 months to sell the homes on the market, we see almost a forty-seven percent decrease.
This is the lowest number we have seen since June of 2010, where the estimate was 6.96 months, though that was only due to the $8,000 tax rebate. With no $8,000 tax credit at the present, this definitely indicates an improving market.
The average listing and selling prices both decreased from this past March, but not by much—only around three percent. The average listing price from March decreased $10,322 to $429,980, while the average selling price decreased $12,108 to $401,624.
Compared to April of last year, however, the two numbers each decreased almost seven percent. The average listing price was $32,501 lower than April of 2012, while the average selling price was $29,603 less.
The real number you should be looking at to see how the market is moving is the percentage of a home’s listed price that homebuyers are paying, which was 93.40% this past April. We may have seen a decrease from March of 2013, where homebuyers paid 93.96% of their home’s listed price, but we saw an increase from April of 2012, where homebuyers were paying 93.24% of their home’s listed price. This definitely shows that the market is better than last year.
So we had 237 homes sold and an estimated 9.62 months to sell the current homes on the market. If that doesn’t look like an improving market, I don’t know what does—especially without an $8,000 tax credit in effect.
Posted by Anthony Licciardello on
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