REAL TRENDS Housing Market Report for June 2010
REAL TRENDS Housing Market Report – June 2010
May 2010 housing unit sales were up 19.8 percent over May 2009 for the second best report of 2010. The average price of homes sold was up 6.9 percent and while not as strong as April 2010 continued the 9 month trend of stronger sales and rising prices.
Unit sales were up in all four regions of the country. The Northeast again led the surge with a 27.8 percent increase in units sold in May 2010 over May 2009. The West had the lowest increase in units closed at a 14.4 percent improvement over May 2009. Prices were up in every region. The West region had the largest increase in average prices of homes sold at 11.6 percent over May 2009 while the Northeast was up 7.8 percent. The region with the weakest price increase was the South with an increase of 2.3 percent in average sales price comparing May 2010 with May 2009.
“The market is reacting as most expected. With a huge number of contracts written before April 30 to take advantage of the tax credit for homebuyers and closings that must take place prior to June 30 to qualify, industry experts expected that May and June 2010 closings would be higher than normal.” said Steve Murray, editor of the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. “We expect that housing sales will continue to show a strong increase in June 2010 over June 2009. Based on estimates of May contracts, however, we expect that third and fourth quarter 2010 closings may well be less than the first two quarters of 2010 and may well be lower than the closed units in the last two quarters of 2009.
The increase in housing sales is the 9th month in a row where housing sales for the present month were above the same month from the prior year. And price increases just hit their 6th month in a row on the same basis. We expect housing sales for the year to be above the level of 2009 in the range of 4-7 percent even with somewhat of a decline in this year’s second half. Home prices will continue to strengthen for at least the next three months but may level out thereafter. The upper end of most housing markets remains soft at this time with no apparent recovery at this time.
Housing Market Report
REAL Trends Housing Market Report
May 2010 April 2010
(Versus same month a year ago)
Closed Sales AVG Price Closed Sales AVG Price
National
+19.8% +6.9% +23.1% +7.3%
Regional Report
Northeast
+27.8% +7.8% +32.9% +13.1%
South
+19.4% +2.3% +25.4% +2.9%
Midwest
+21.4% +5.0% +30.6% +10.5%
West
+14.4% +11.6% +10.0% +10.2%
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