Weekly Special | May 6, 2019

Year Over Year Home Sales Surge In April

Year over year home sales soared 20% higher in April and was strong enough to bring the market back to nearly even for the year.

The graph above shows year over year homes sales, which is a method of tracking change in the market. The green vertical lines occur when a month shows more home sales than that same month in the prior year, while red vertical lines show declines.

Over the past twelve months, there have been six months of declines and six months of growth, for a grand total decline of about 2.8%.

Last year my firm sold a 56-unit condo complex to a single buyer, but since all units had their own tax identification number, it was recorded as 56 individual sales. That sale occurred in March. If you take that one transaction out of the market, then 2019 is actually ahead of 2018.

The growth rate of the housing recovery had been slowed by a combination of declining inventory, rising mortgage interest rates, and a healthy dose of buyer “sticker shock” as home prices in many neighborhoods have moved as much as 10% higher in less than a year. Prices have stabilized somewhat and we are not seeing rapid appreciation in most areas, so expect sticker shock to recede and the pace of sales to improve.

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