For the 16th straight month, existing home and condo sales in Dane County increased over the previous year, though median sales price remained tepid as more homes under $200,000 sold.
Sales volume in October was up 61 percent in Dane County compared with a year ago, or from 283 in October 2011 to 457, according to the South Central Wisconsin MLS on Thursday. That’s also the largest number of sales for an October since 2009.
You can see the full report here.
Year-to-date through October in Dane County, there were 5,121 sales, up 27 percent from 4,033 in October 2011. That holds up historically as well, the MLS showed, as Dane County posted the highest total sales through the first 10 months of the year since 2007.
Sales also were strong in October for the south-central Wisconsin region overall — up nearly 38 percent to 830, compared with last October. Year-to-date through October, they were 24 percent higher than the same period of 2011.
But median sales price dropped in October, both in Dane County and the region overall. In Dane County, it was down 3 percent to $198,500, compared with October 2011, and down 2 percent to $202,500 year-to-date through October.
For the region, median sale price was $157,000 in October, down 1.8 percent from $159,000 last October. It also was slightly below October 2010, when median sales price was $157,750 for the region, the MLS showed.
MLS Executive Vice President Kevin King said increased sales under $200,000 have helped keep median price grounded. In Dane County, 90 single-family homes sold for less than $200,000 last October, for 41 percent of total sales, compared with 162 such homes this October, for 45 percent of total sales.
Across the region, cash sales — which often means purchases by investors — also rose again, to nearly 25 percent of total sales. Five years ago, cash sales were only 11 percent of October sales, King noted.
Hope for higher prices, meanwhile, may lie with the decreasing supply of homes for sale, a trend seen for many months now.
“As the inventories move toward balance, prices very well could begin to rise,” King said.
Active listings fell below 4,000 in Dane County in October for the first time since 2005, King noted, creating what’s considered an almost exactly balanced market for single-family homes, at 6.1 months. The condo supply on the market, though, remains higher, at 10.7 months.
King said inventories continue to fall due to a combination of increased sales and fewer new listings coming on the market, as some potential sellers — no doubt hoping for higher prices — try to make smart decisions about when to list or not list their properties.
Much less seller restraint was seen during the housing boom, of course, ultimately creating excessive inventory after the market crashed and many people stopped buying for a time.
“The number of new listings exploded between 2005 and 2008,” King said. “This contributed to the backlog we experienced for several years. Since then, we’ve seen a reduction in the number of new listings - more like what we experienced 10 years ago. We think sellers and their brokers are taking a strategic look at the current market in their neighborhood and price range, and assessing the likelihood of success.”
King expected sales to slow down, as they traditionally do, as the holidays approach, but he believed they’d continue beating 2011 sales, based in part on agent reports of increased showings and website activity in October compared with last year.
“The process of recovery of the area housing market continues to show positive signs for the remainder of the year,” he said.
In other measures, October’s distressed sales, which involve homes in or near foreclosure, were the lowest in Dane County since at least May, when the MLS began tracking that.
At 40, county sales of distressed single-family homes were well below the six-month average of 57.5; for distressed condos, they stood at 23, which was just below the six-month average of 24.8.
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