Metro Atlanta single family home sales for September surged nearly 25 percent compared with the same month a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said in its monthly report, though median prices were the lowest of the 19 cities surveyed.
Nationally, year-over-year sales were up 15 percent.
Walter Molony with NAR said sales in September 2010 were very poor because a tax credit for home purchases had expired during that summer, so even though 2011 numbers are up comparatively, they still are not good.
"The good news is the market is trying to recover on its own without a tax credit," Molony said.
The bad news is that despite record low interest rates and declining home prices, the market is still underperforming, he said.
Metro Atlanta's median existing home sales price fell from $111,500 in September 2010 to $94,000 last month, or by 15 percent. Nationally, the drop was about 4 percent, the NAR report said.
About one in three sales in metro Atlanta was a home under foreclosure or a short sale, and that is keeping prices depressed, said Steve Palm of Smart Numbers, a local real estate analysis firm.
He said the median price has not been lower in metro Atlanta since 1996.
"September was a new bottom in pricing," he said. "One out of four houses is going for less than $50,000."
The low prices are helping drive sales, but the NAR report said every fifth home is going to an investor, not an owner who will live in the house.
Inventory of homes for sale in metro Atlanta is also dropping, which typically pushes prices upward. But the market has changed from normal financial times.
"No one is putting their house on the market," Palm said. "Foreclosures are rampant, people are afraid to move, they are afraid of getting beat up when selling their house. They are in limbo land."
The NAR projects national home sales for 2011 will be about the same as last year, Molony said.
Other metro areas where sales increased sharply were Miami, up 34 percent and the median prices was $180,000; Minneapolis, up nearly 28 percent with a median price of $158,900; New Orleans, up 27 percent and the median price at $153,200, and Phoenix, up 25 percent and the median price at $126,500.
Locally, numbers from Coldwell Banker NRT Development Advisors show there were 2,882 single family home sales in the 15-county metro Atlanta area in September 2010, compared with 3,695 last month.
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