Summit County Real Estate Momentum Continues

May continued what is now a 7 month streak of double digit gains in Summit County real estate activity. And like the prior six months, we are talking about squeaking into the double digit category. For the month, transaction volume rose 18% to 205 sales representing the highest May total since 2007. Dollar volume increased an even more impressive 27% to $116.3 million, again the monthly high since 2007.
Year-to-date, transaction volume is now up 24% with a total of 740 sales while dollar volume has increased 34% to $408.6 million.
During the month, the very low end of the market (under $300,000) underperformed hitting only 24.3% of total sales versus 31% in the prior four months. Sales at $300,000 and each $100,000 price point above up to $800,000 represented a higher share of total sales than seen in the prior 4 months. In total, they were 61.1% of sales versus 51,7% earlier in the year. The $800,000 to $2 million range underperformed modestly but there were 4 sales over $2 million and 2 over $2.5 million. Together the $2 million plus categories were 3.5% of sales up from 1.5% in the first four months.
Year-to-date average selling prices (ASPs) did not show much movement from the levels seen in April. The year-to-date ASP for a single family home was $862,364, down slightly from the $873,006 in April but up 1% from the level a year ago and up 10% from the year end 2014 figure.
Multi family ASPs had a stronger showing. That year-to-date figure rose 3% from April, 8% from a year ago and 13% from all of 2014.
As is typical this time of year, inventories have begun to rise. Active listings of single family homes have increased from their low of 263 in January to 334. Rising sales had reduced the months of inventory to 6 in April but have not kept up with the recent surge in listings so now there are not 10 months of inventory. Multi-family inventory is up but still tight representing only 5 months of sales.