Tuesday, June 23, 2009

U.S. existing home sales up 2.4%

Apologies for the long blog layoff. An upswing in the Seattle real estate market means I have a bit less time for writing on the blog! But here we go...

The Seattle Times published an article this morning that existing home sales in the U.S. are up 2.4%. Because many of these sales are short sales or bank owned properties, the median sales price dropped to $173,000 for the national average. Read the full article here.

The western states saw an increase in home sales by 16%. In fact, this article from the Seattle Times mentions how hot the Seattle real estate market is for homes under $400,000. Seattle sales are down 33% from one year ago but up from March of 2009.

All this data is great but what does it mean? Well, it's still too soon to say we've reached bottom on either a national or local level. Three months of increasing sales is great, however it's only three months. I personally think we are starting to see signs of reaching the bottom in the lower priced tier (under $400k). Unfortunately, the pricier homes may still see a decline.

No comments: