Written by theblog on June 7, 2009 – 6:26 am
The stats for the Houston market are out for April. The number of sales were pretty poor. How poor? There were 4621 sales in April 2009. This is down 24 percent from last year and down 32 percent from 2 years ago. Not only that, the last time there was this few sales in the month of April was in April 2000 when there were 4364 sales.
To make matters even worse the number of sales was down from the 4699 we saw last month. Usually as we move into summer the number of sales should increase. The fact that the number of sales is going down is not a good sign. Since mortgage rates are going up its unlikely we will see a recovery in the next few months.
| Year | Month | House Sales | 1 Yr Change | 2 Yr Change | Average Home Price | % Price Change | Median Home Price | % 1 Yr Change | Active Listings | % 1 Yr Change | Months of Inventory | 2007 | Jan | 4,645 | 178,700 | 141,500 | 35,809 | 7.709 |
| 2007 | Feb | 5,525 | 193,600 | 147,200 | 36,443 | 6.596 | |||||
| 2007 | Mar | 6,775 | 202,500 | 151,500 | 38,552 | 5.69 | |||||
| 2007 | Apr | 6,809 | 201,900 | 149,300 | 40,486 | 5.945 | |||||
| 2007 | May | 7,925 | 209,800 | 154,200 | 41,864 | 5.282 | |||||
| 2007 | Jun | 7,947 | 214,500 | 158,900 | 42,766 | 5.381 | |||||
| 2007 | Jul | 7,551 | 206,500 | 154,800 | 42,919 | 5.683 | |||||
| 2007 | Aug | 7,856 | 210,200 | 157,300 | 43,107 | 5.487 | |||||
| 2007 | Sep | 5,581 | 200,000 | 149,900 | 43,038 | 7.711 | |||||
| 2007 | Oct | 5,848 | 195,600 | 146,500 | 42,332 | 7.238 | |||||
| 2007 | Nov | 5,515 | 199,200 | 148,900 | 41,069 | 7.446 | |||||
| 2007 | Dec | 5,691 | 212,300 | 154,700 | 39,100 | 6.87 | |||||
| 2008 | Jan | 4,061 | -0.13 | 188,700 | 0.06 | 139,500 | -0.01 | 39,790 | 0.11 | 9.798 | |
| 2008 | Feb | 5,036 | -0.09 | 201,200 | 0.04 | 151,000 | 0.03 | 40,104 | 0.1 | 7.963 | |
| 2008 | Mar | 5,802 | -0.14 | 202,500 | 0 | 151,800 | 0 | 40,896 | 0.06 | 7.048 | |
| 2008 | Apr | 6,049 | -0.11 | 203,400 | 0.01 | 150,300 | 0.01 | 41,214 | 0.02 | 6.813 | |
| 2008 | May | 6,781 | -0.14 | 210,800 | 0 | 155,800 | 0.01 | 41,318 | -0.01 | 6.093 | |
| 2008 | Jun | 6,981 | -0.12 | 223,500 | 0.04 | 160,100 | 0.01 | 41,474 | -0.03 | 5.94 | |
| 2008 | Jul | 6,717 | -0.11 | 219,600 | 0.06 | 159,900 | 0.03 | 41,038 | -0.04 | 6.109 | |
| 2008 | Aug | 6,249 | -0.2 | 220,000 | 0.05 | 158,900 | 0.01 | 39,203 | -0.09 | 6.273 | |
| 2008 | Sep | 4,067 | -0.27 | 206,000 | 0.03 | 155,300 | 0.04 | 37,623 | -0.13 | 9.25 | |
| 2008 | Oct | 4,710 | -0.19 | 191,200 | -0.02 | 141,900 | -0.03 | 36,308 | -0.14 | 7.708 | |
| 2008 | Nov | 3,731 | -0.32 | 185,000 | -0.07 | 137,500 | -0.08 | 34,493 | -0.16 | 9.244 | |
| 2008 | Dec | 4,974 | -0.13 | 189,200 | -0.11 | 145,100 | -0.06 | 31,637 | -0.19 | 6.36 | |
| 2009 | Jan | 3,102 | -0.24 | -0.33 | 164,800 | -0.13 | 130,800 | -0.06 | 31,654 | -0.2 | 10.204 |
| 2009 | Feb | 3,763 | -0.25 | -0.32 | 178,700 | -0.11 | 137,700 | -0.09 | 31,999 | -0.2 | 8.503 |
| 2009 | Mar | 4,699 | -0.19 | -0.31 | 190,800 | -0.06 | 145,100 | -0.04 | 32,462 | -0.21 | 6.908 |
| 2009 | Apr | 4,621 | -0.24 | -0.32 | 192,300 | -0.05 | 148,800 | -0.01 | 31,772 | -0.23 | 6.875 |
| Year | Month | House Sales | 1 Yr Change | 2 Yr Change | Average Home Price | % Price Change | Median Home Price | % 1 Yr Change | Active Listings | % 1 Yr Change | Months of Inventory |
Average prices were down 5 percent from last year. Year to year sales have been down since October 2008 so this is nothing new.
On the other hand there is some positive news for the Houston market. The number of active listings is down 23 percent compared to last year. Since the number of active listings has to go down before the market can improve this is a positive step.