Ada County Real Estate Continues Recovery

by Marc Lebowitz, RCE, CAE Executive Director Ada County Association of REALTORS Sales in August were 2012 were 706 in Ada County, an increase of 15.14% compared to August 2011.   Year-to-date sales are 4,684; 10.5% over the first eight months of 2011. Dollar volume for August was up 30.44% to $148Mil. For the year we are at $923Mil. New homes sold in August increased 57% over new homes sold in August of 2011!!…and are up 65% YTD. Historically, August sales increase by 3% over July. August 2012 sales increased by 11% over July 2012. Of our total sales in August… 21% were distressed (148 total sales)….down 3% from July 2012. In August 2011, 44% of our sales were distressed.  In January 56% of distressed properties were REOs and 44% were short sales.  In August the ratio was 67% short sales (99 total sales) and 33% REOs (49 total sales). This is five consecutive months with short sales being the larger percentage of distressed properties sold. Pending sales at the end of August were 1,113; down 9% from the end of July. In general pending sales in May are the highest of the year; and June the second highest.  The percentage of pending sales in distress increased 1% from July, totaling 27% overall. There has been very little fluctuation in this number since May 2012 when we first went below 30%. A year ago we were averaging close to 50% of pendings in distress; but have decreased steadily since January.  Of Pending sales in distress, short sales outnumbered REO’s 3 to 1. At the end of August, we had 26% more sales pending than at the end of August 2011. August median home price was $180,399; up 16% from August 2011. Median home price is up 30% since January of this year and above $150,000 for seven months running.  We continue to outpace our national recovery; according to NAR’s most recent report. New Homes median price for August was $224,777; down 4% from August 2011. The number of houses available increased slightly for the fifth consecutive month. At the end of August our total active inventory was 2,170 homes. This is up .5% from July and 12% less than last year at this time. At the same time, the percentage of distressed active inventory held at 24%. This is the lowest number we’ve seen in several years. We have been hovering between 33% and 36% for the last year. We remain well below the 40% levels set last spring….when we were on the increase. With an inventory increasing and the percentage of distressed inventory decreasing; median home price will continue to strengthen. Of our Distressed Inventory 89% is Short Sales (436 homes) and only 11% is REO (57 homes); nearly unchanged from last month. We didn’t increase available inventory very much.  We added five homes in the $200,000 to $250,000 and eight homes in the $400,000 to $500,000 price ranges…and…we added 6 homes in the $1,000,000+! All other price points had a decreases in available inventory. The number of available new homes increased in the price ranges of $160,000 to $200,000 by a total of 11 homes. In Ada County we now have less than 3.3 months of inventory on hand. The price category in shortest supply is <$119,000 with 2.6 months. In the range of $120,000 to $159,999 we have 2.4 months. All price points up to $400,000 have less than 4 month’s supply. We have benefited for nearly two years from inventory levels much lower than national average. Multiple offers are much more prevalent; now becoming the norm. Based on August sold data, our most desirable price point is $120,000 to $160,000 which was 25% of total sales. The next largest price point sold is $160,000 to $200,000 at 19.7% of all sales. I’m still going to stick with my conservative forecast for the rest of the year; single digit sales increase and double digit median price increase.