Christian Real Estate Blog

NAR Releases Monthly and Annual 2005 Existing Home Sale Numbers

Investing In Single Family Homes Proves Strong in 05: "The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has issued its report for both December existing home sales and for the entire last year.

Total sales for the year, including single-family houses, townhouses, condos, and co-ops totaled 7,072,000 units. This was 4.2 percent higher than the 6,784,000 recorded in 2004 and represented the fifth year in a row that existing home sales set a record. NAR has been keeping these sales records since 1968.

The median existing home price for the year was 208,700, up 12.7 percent from the median of $185,200 in 2004. Comparative sales figures for December 2005 and December 2004 were $211,000 and $191,000, an increase of 10.5 percent year over year.

Inventory levels declined to 2.80 million units at the end of December, a 5.1 month supply at present sales levels. Inventory in December 2004 was 2,214,000, a 3.9 month supply at the then-current rate.

Condo and co-op sales were up in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 877,000 units in December; this was 1.6 percent higher than November figures. For the year, condo sales were up 9.3 percent to 896,000 units which set the 10th consecutive annual record. The median price for a condo was $228,100 for the month which was 10.2 percent higher than the median in December, 2004. On an annual basis the median price for 2005 was up 12.7 percent to 218,200.

Single family houses, however, declined 6.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.72 million in December, from 6.14 million annualized units in November. December 2004 figures were also down from figures a year earlier by 4.2 percent.

The median price of a single family home was 209,300 in December, 10.8 percent higher than the prevailing median price one year earlier. The median figure for the year was $207,300, 12.6 percent higher than 2004."

posted by Justin Smith @ 2/01/2006 01:06:00 PM