Year Over Year Home Sales Show Growth

For the third consecutive month, year over year home sales grew in the Tallahassee real estate market. This type of measurement compares a current month with its counterpart from a year ago, so the updated housing report shows that March 2011 saw 16% more sales than March 2010. Considering that at this time last year we were in the end-run of the Homebuyer Tax Credit, this news is very surprising. It means the housing market is doing better without the Tax Credit than it was with the credit.

The information that was used to create the real estate graph below is a measurement of all recorded single family detached home sales, condominiums, and townhouses in Leon County. One interesting note is that when we pull sales from the Tallahassee MLS over this period of time, we get the opposite results; home sales declined in the Tallahassee MLS when analyzing March 2011 year over year home sales.

This graph is a simple but effective tool that one can use to monitor for trend changes in the housing market. With three surprising months of growth under our belts already for 2011, we just have to survive the anniversary of the end of the Homebuyer Tax Credit (June) in order to  have a better 2011 than 2010.

Year To Date Home Sales Graph

Since we already reported that we have three consecutive months of gains in the year over year report, it should come as no surprise that our year to date home sales report is positive compared to the same period last year. As a matter of fact, Tallahassee home sales through March 2011 are the best reported in three years.

In the graph above, the dark area of each bar measures the sales of single family detached homes, while the lighter portion of each bar shows the sales of condominiums and townhouses. The good news is that 2011 is the best year of the last three; the bad news is that it is the third worst over the past 21 years. This graph provides a great perspective on the significant drop in home sales over the past few years. Our county is 43%, more populous than it was in 1990, yet look at how much fewer home sales are occurring now versus then.