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The Existing Home Sales Report Beats Expectations

by: Jordan Kahn August 15, 2007    
Jordan Kahn

Jordan Kahn

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The NAR put out its quarterly Median Sales Price report for single-family homes as of Q2. Even though this is a snapshot of the recent past, I did not find as much weakness as I would have thought. Overall, the median sales price for the entire U.S. fell -1.5% from Q2 2006, but was higher than last quarter (Q107).

For the major cities I track, here are the recent figures:

  • Chicago (+1.7%)
  • Los Angeles (+2.9%)
  • Miami (+2.0%)
  • New York (+1.7%)
  • San Francisco (+7.6%)

    • These are pretty surprising figures, and show no declines in these major cities. Given all that we hear about the bubble in home prices over the last several years, these figures continue to lend themselves to the notion of a soft-landing in housing.

    Of course, given what is currently going on in the subprime market, and the credit markets in general, it will be more telling to see how prices are affected in next quarter's report (since these prices dont' reflect what has transpired since July).

    Other notable areas that have been strong in recent years, and are on most real estate watcher's radar include:

  • Las Vegas (-3.6%)
  • Phoenix (-2.7%)
  • Portland (+5.2%)
  • San Diego (+0.2%)
  • Washington DC (+0.3%)

    • The strongest areas in the report were cities like:

  • Salt Lake City (+21.9%)
  • Salem (+16.7%)
  • Binghamton (+19.8%)
  • Farmington (+14.0%)
  • Seattle (+8.9%)
  • San Jose (+8.8%)
  • Charlotte (+8.3%)

    • The weakest areas in the report were cities such as:

  • Palm Bay, FL (-15.0%)
  • Elmira, NY (-17.9%)
  • Davenport, IA (-11.3%)
  • Sarasota (-11.3%)
  • Cleveland (-7.1%)

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    This article has 5 comments:

    •  
      Aug 15 01:44 PM
      If only luxury homes are selling, then obviously the median will be distorted. To conclude that things are not so bad because the median selling price is higher is totally retarded.
      Reply
    •  
      Aug 15 01:57 PM
      Concur - I've stopped looking at median prices as we're now in the market for a home in SoCal (not buying anytime soon), and from monitoring the listings for a year now, prices have indeed dropped.

      The median skews the picture, as some people know, since it doesn't take into account the mix of homes sold during the period.

      Last year, around this time, we were looking at 2500-2600 sq ft homes at the $700k to $800k range. Now you can routinely fine almost 3000 sq ft homes for mid $600's. It seems to have accelerated to the downside in the past few months.
      Reply
    •  
      Aug 15 02:33 PM
      kind of surprising for Binghampton to be up a lot while Elmira is down, both pretty small markets but it makes me wonder about the accuracy of these stats
      Reply
    •  
      Aug 15 03:09 PM
      Zillow.com does estimates of value for individual homes, and these estimates seem to have stabilized recently (up in some places, down in others).
      Reply
    •  
      Aug 15 05:42 PM
      I'm not sure if it's a good idea to compare home sale of first quarter against second quarter is fair. Q107 includes winter months. For places like Chicago, it makes a lot of difference.
      Reply
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