September Sales Stay Positive

After what appeared to be a major surge of activity in August, real estate sales in September declined dramatically month to month but maintained single digital gains over a year ago. Transaction volume in September was off 19 percent from August with 259 sales. That number, however, was up 1.4 percent from the year earlier month.
Dollar volume was also off sharply from August falling, 31 percent to $161.9 million . Nevertheless, that figure was up 4.4 percent from a year ago.
Year to date there have been 1,866 transactions up 2% from a year ago. Dollar volume is up 11 percent at $1.27 billion.
As a percentage of overall sales, the low end of the market continues to underperform. This is primarily due to a lack of inventory. In 2015, 70 percent of the County’s sales were under $500,000 . That number has dropped each year since and year to date 2018 the figure stands at 47 percent. Currently, only 16 percent of listings are priced below $500,000. Obviously, properties at the lower end of the market are quick to sell.
Average selling prices for single family homes has been relatively stable through the year. Sales year to date have averaged $1,115,201, up 4 percent from this time a year ago and up 2.5% from the full year 2017 figure. Multi-family pricing has been somewhat strong. The year to date ASP for multi-family properties stands at $518,705, up 11.7 percent from this time a year ago and 9.6 percent from December of 2017.
Overall, inventories dropped 3 percent in October following the normal seasonal trend. What wasn’t normal was the fact that all that decline and then some came from a drop in single family listings, down 12 percent, while multi-family properties for sale actual rose by 6 percent.