housing inventory

Today, North Texans received news that people in many other parts of the country can only dream of hearing. Pre-owned median home prices increased last month from a year earlier. The increase was small – only 1 percent – but significant at a time when numerous other housing markets are still mired in a real estate slump that has sent home prices tumbling.

There was more good news in the new report released by the Real Estate Center at Texas A& M University. About 33,500 homes were listed for sale in North Texas in January – about 10 percent less than the same time last year. That amounts to less than a six-month supply, which many analysts see as a sign of a balanced market.

The current supply of single-family homes is one of the reasons why residential prices are on their way up. As the inventory of homes decreases, an area becomes less of a buyers’ market and prices begin to stabilize. In North Texas, median home prices were flat in 2009 while many other parts of the country saw double-digit declines. In more good news, real estate agent sold 3,300 homes through the Multiple Listing Service last month and 172 condominiums.

Pending home sales increased 3.7% in October, rising for the 9^th consecutive month and reaching the highest recorded level since March 2006. Up almost 32% from October 2008, pending home sales experienced the largest annual increase ever posted for NAR’s pending sales index.

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, attributes the high numbers to the government’s home buyer tax credit, which has helped “unleash a pent-up demand from a large pool of financially qualified renters, much more than borrowing sales from the future.” Yun predicts that the extended credit could cause a lag in existing-home sales in December, but expects housing conditions to stabilize around the middle of 2010.

October presented positive movement in other sectors of the housing market, as well:

• Private residential construction spending surged 3.9%
• Housing inventory decreased to a 7-month supply, down from a 10.2-month supply in October 2008

For further reading, visit cnnmoney.com.