Very good article in today's Seacoast Online by Shir Haberman on the seacoast homes market...
Sales up, selling prices continue to decline
The good news is that here on the Seacoast more homes are selling more quickly than last year. The bad news is that they are selling for less.
The homebuyer's tax credit continues to sustain the Seacoast residential real estate market, Realtor John Rice of Tate and Foss Inc of Rye, who crunches the numbers for the Seacoast Board of Realtors, said. November sales of single-family homes and condos, just as in the previous month, were stronger than normal in the nine sample Seacoast towns, Rice said.
November single-family sales were up 11.7 percent from the previous month, while condo sales slipped by 21 percent, but only after a year-high 29 sales in October. Despite the slippage in condo sales, November was still the fourth best month of the year at a time when sales usually dip much lower.
The effect of the tax credit appears to be reflected in the price ranges that saw the most activity. All but one of the 22 condo sales were for units costing less than $300,000, while the single-family market showed strength not only in sales under $400,000, but also between $400,000 and $700,000.
The total unit sales were a substantial improvement over November 2008. Single-family sales were up 29 percent and condo sales a whopping 92 percent.
However, home values continue to moderate, Rice said.
"It depends on where the property is located," he said. "Values tend to depreciate more west of Route 1, but all areas are seeing prices moderate."
Results for the rest of Rockingham County followed the same trends.
Year to date, 2,207 homes sold in the county as compared to 2,151 during the same period last year, according to data supplied by the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS® (NHAR). That is an increase of 2.6 percent.
In addition, the average days on the market for a home in Rockingham County decreased from 134 in 2008, to 129 in 2009. That is a 4 percent decrease.
However, the median selling price for a Rockingham County home also decreased from $287,500 in 2008, to $255,900 in 2009. That's is down $31,600, or 11 percent.
Month over month, the sales of homes in Rockingham County increased 50.6 percent for November 2009 over that month in 2008, days on the market decreased 2 percent and the selling price decreased 2.5 percent.
Condos did not fair as well county wide. Units sold in Rockingham County fell 6.6 percent year-to-date from 2008 to 2009, days on the market increased by 5 percent and the median selling price fell almost 11 percent.
However, in November the number of condos selling in Rockingham County increased 70.2 percent, from 47 in November 2008, to 80 in November 2009.
Statewide, residential home sales experienced the largest single-month increase in recorded history last month, as November unit sales jumped 70 percent from November 2008.
According to data released this week by the NHAR, 1,141 single-family homes sold in November 2009, a substantial spike from the 673 sales a year ago.
NHAR attributed the historic increase in part to the continued incentive of the homebuyer tax credit, but generally as a signal that the residential real estate market is amidst the early stages of the recovery process.
"We've been witnessing small, steady and consistent sales increases for several months," said NHAR President Paul Sargeant, a 20-year veteran of the real estate business and a broker with Better Homes and Gardens The Masiello Group in Bedford. "This is the strongest indication we've seen in some time that the recovery is underway and we are heading back toward a normalized residential housing market."
The strong November brought the cumulative yearly numbers for the first 11 months of 2009 to 5 percent ahead of the same period last year — 10,006 compared to 9,507 — all but ensuring that the unit sales will end up ahead of the prior year for the first time since 2004.
The recent sales also helped to drive down statewide residential inventory to 9.1 months supply, the lowest it has been since June 2007 and a significant improvement from the 22 months supply seen at the end of January 2009. The National Association of REALTORS® considers 6 to 7 months a balanced market, fewer months a sellers' market and more than that a buyers' market.
The good news filtered to the local markets as well, as each of New Hampshire's 10 counties saw at least double digit percentage sales gains, including a 61 percent jump in the state's largest county, Hillsborough — from 183 residential sales in November 2008 to 295 in November 2009.
NHAR provided further good news in terms of November condominium sales, which increased by 97 percent — from 145 to 285 — statewide, including increases in all but one county, marking a second consecutive months of condominium sales gains.
And as another positive sign in terms of residential sales, Sargeant pointed to the National Association of REALTORS® most recent report of the pending home sales index — a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts — which showed an ninth consecutive month of gains, a pattern not seen since the index began in 2001.
Meanwhile, 2009 prices statewide continued to lag behind the prices of last year, although November's median price showed less a dramatic drop than previous months at a 2.8 percent decline statewide, from $215,000 in November 2008 to $209,000 in November 2009.
Sargeant said the trend of stabilizing prices is a natural product of the increasing sales and declining inventory, and he believes that will continue into 2010 and beyond.
"We're in an entirely different kind of market than we were a year ago," he said. "The balance is returning, and there is optimism throughout our industry that things are changing for the better."
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