While April, May, and June home sales in the Athens and Decatur Alabama areas were higher than normal, July 2010 home sales have come in lower than seasonally normal.
This awkward behavior is likely due to the Home Buyer tax-credit that expired for closings occurring on or before June 30th 2010.
The best way to actually take a measurement of local market performance is to use a June-July comparison between 2009 and 2010 to mitigate the tax-cut effect of the 2010 period. When doing so we end up with 382 units sold during the 2009 period compared with 205 home closing during the same period of 2010. This results in a home sales decline of -23% year-over-year.
Despite this very negative comparison of just a single snap shot in time, the 12 months moving average in the chart above tells a completely different story. The moving average shows a declining market from mid 2007 until late early 2009 while showing a stable flattening market for the last 1 1/4 years, which is encouraging. The next few months as we head into the fall and winter, predominantly the slower times of the year for Decatur Al Real Estate Sales, will tell us the whole story.
This month I have also broken down the results for July with an annual comparison across a few different price ranges, despite the huge difference in unit sales for the month this also show a lowering of price in both the high and low end of the market while prices are stable and growing in the middle price ranges.
Given the next few months will be critical in evaluating where our local market is heading post tax-credit be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to follow our regular updates.
- Jason
