But 2010 report also finds an increase of almost 25 percent in median sale price
Brian J. O’Connor / Detroit News Finance Editor
Even though home sales across Metro Detroit slowed during 2010, foreclosure sales were down, the number of homes on the market shrank and prices rose, according to a report released Monday.
Metro Detroit finished with an 8.6 percent decline in home sales, but the inventory of houses dropped 13.4 percent and the region saw an increase of nearly 25 percent in the median sale price, according to regional multiple listing service Realcomp II Ltd.
For this year, Kage said she expects to see prices making slow gains, but sales could slow down further because the number of houses on the market is dropping.
“The Realtors are telling me they really want to see some additional inventory,” Kage said. “They’re hoping that prices coming up will encourage more private sellers.”
Sales in Wayne County dropped 18.7 percent last year and 1.4 percent in Macomb County. In other parts of four-county Metro Detroit, sales were up, including a gain of 1.5 percent in Oakland County and 4.9 percent in Livingston County.
Overall, the amount of foreclosure sales dropped across the region to 41 percent of all homes and condominiums sold from 53 percent in 2009. The overall sales rate across the four-county region was down 8.6 percent.
A larger trend was the increase in the median sales price, which was up in every county served by Realcomp except for a $862 dip in Livingston County. Wayne County saw the biggest increase, a 50.5 percent gain to nearly $38,000, but that price remains well off the kind of values homes were commanding just a few years ago.
Macomb County saw a 2.6 percent rise and Oakland County was up 12.7 percent. In the four counties, price gains averaged a 24.6 percent improvement.
Houses also sold a bit quicker, in part because buyers rushed in before the $8,000 first-time homebuyers credit expired in the spring. Homes in metro Detroit sold after an average of 95 days on the market, an improvement of eight days from 2009.
In the Grosse Pointe area, prices were nearly flat but the number of sales increased last year, noted Randy Repicky, president of the Grosse Pointe Board of Realtors and a broker with Johnstone & Johnstone of Grosse Pointe Farms. A steep slide in home prices there finally skidded to a halt in 2010, he added.
“The average price per square foot had been dropping dramatically,” Repicky said. “In 2009, it dropped 20 percent and last year it dropped only 1 percent.”
Still, he worries that foreclosures may increase after a lull around the holidays following self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums by several big banks that faced scrutiny over allegations of fraud and misrepresentation of foreclosure documents in other states.
“The number of foreclosures last year was much lower than it was for the past two years,” Repicky said. “Unfortunately, that will probably change this year, and there are a lot of foreclosures in progress that will be coming onto the market. That will pull prices down.”
Kage of Realcomp noted that rising interest rates may prod more buyers into the market if they’ve been waiting to see how low rates would go. “People think, ‘Uh-oh, I better hurry up,’ ” she said.
The fluctuations of interest rates, employment, foreclosures and more make it almost impossible to predict where real estate is going, Kage said.
“It’s day-to-day,” she said. “I really don’t know what to expect.”
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110118/BIZ/101180333/Metro-Detroit-home-sales-drop-8.6-percent#ixzz1BOtsCpK2