Summit County Real Estate Sales Volume Rises But Dollars Decline

July showed mixed results for real estate sales in Summit County. Transaction volume was up 6 percent versus a year ago with 215 sales but dollar volume declined by 11 percent to $104.6 million. Both figures showed modest declines from June.
Those results were consistent with the national trend according to the RE/MAX National Housing Report for July. Nationally, in a survey of 53 markets, 49 showed June to July declines averaging 13.1 percent. Year to date home sales are down 8.8 percent while unit sales in Summit County are down 3%.
The lower end of the market was quite active. Sales in the month below $400,000 accounted for 53.4 percent of all residential sales versus 46.9 percent in all of 2015. The average price per square foot in this segment is up over 20 percent from July of 2015 and the average days on market have been cut in half to 27 days. Many of these properties are getting multiple offers and selling in less than a week.
At the higher end the $1-1.5 million range was pretty active with 16 transactions representing 9.1 percent of all sales or nearly twice its 2015 share. The mid-tier price points and very high end were both below their historical levels.
The average single family home price in the county rose to $941,735, up 1 percent from June and 9 percent from a year ago.
Multi-family ASPs fell about 1 percent both year over year and month to month. That is reflective of the mix shift with more low end sales rather than an actual deterioration in prices.
While inventories have shown seasonal improvement, the gains were quite modest in July with multi-family units actually falling. Overall, inventories are down 23 percent from a year ago. Higher prices and lower inventories are the key contributors to the lower year over year volume.