Courtesy of Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner
The 30 day moving average of US house sales for the 30 days ended July 26 showed prices continuing to rise while sales volume declined for the first time since March, in data reported by Dataquick. There were 198,090 sales recorded for the period, versus 220,425 for the 30 days ended July 19. This represented a gain of 12.4% from the year ago period. Since June 21 the one year rate of change has ranged from 10.5% to 13.7%. Median sale prices rose from $197,000 last week to $197,900 in the current week, for a gain of 7% versus the year ago period. Over the past 5 weeks the annual rate of change ranged from 5.6% to 7.5%.
Weekly Home Sales Price Trend – Click to enlarge
Source: DQNews.
Using the most current 30/31 days for each county. Covers 98 of the Top 100 US MSAs (excludes Louisville and Wichita) – 66.25% of US home sales. These numbers are not modeled. They are real sales counts and medians.
The Dataquick data is from closed sales, representing contracts that were generally signed two months earlier on average. Data from Corelogic based on current contract prices obtained from all US Multiple Listing Services through June suggested that prices gained another 1.4% in June.
For current real time price information we must rely on listings prices. Aggregate listing prices from DepartmentofNumbers.com have proven to be accurate representations of the trend of the market. Subsequently released sales data has shown that sales prices are consistently between 95% and 97% of listing prices. The median real time listing price of 54 large US metropolitan areas fell by 0.3% in the month ended July 23, with a year to year gain of 2.4%. Seasonally, prices normally peak in June and begin a decline in July that lasts until January. The key to the trend is lies in the rate of change relative to the same period last year. At this point, there’s no sign of a change in the trend.
According to DepartmentofNumbers.com, “The median asking price for homes in the US peaked in June 2006 at $319,459 and is now lower by $83,433 (26.1%). From a low of $211,844 in January 2011, the median asking price in the US has increased by $24,180 (11.4%).”
Listing Prices – Click to enlarge
Listing inventory fell by 2.7% in the month ended July 23, and are down 22.8% year to year. Normally inventories peak in the summer between June and August.Contrary to the widespread and irrational fear that “shadow inventory” will depress the market, the trend is going the other way. The trend of declining inventory is continuing and may even be accelerating. The normal increase in inventory that normally occurs in the first half of the year did not materialize this year. Inventory, especially the inventory of well located, desirable properties in good condition, may be headed for new lows. This should contribute to keeping prices in an uptrend.
54 Metros Listing Inventory – Click to enlarge
Wall Street Examiner Home Sales Charts
Get regular updates the machinations of the Fed, Treasury, Primary Dealers and foreign central banks in the US market, in the Fed Report in the Professional Edition, Money Liquidity, and Real Estate Package. Click this link to try WSE's Professional Edition risk free for 30 days!
Copyright © 2012 The Wall Street Examiner. All Rights Reserved. The above may be reposted with attribution and a prominent link to the Wall Street Examiner.
