Homes sold
The number of homes sold in metro Atlanta is decreasing, in large part because of the paucity of homes available for sale. October figures are preliminary.
Month…..Total sales…..Month-over-month percent change
April…..3,784…..Up 3.6 percent
May…..4,600…..Up 21.6 percent
June…..4,351…..Down 5.4 percent
July…..4,623…..Up 6.3 percent
August…..4,268…..Down 7.7 percent
September…..3,594…..Down 15.8 percent
October…..3,566…..Down 0.8 percent
Source: Atlanta Board of Realtors
Sales prices
The median sales price of metro Atlanta homes is up substantially over the previous year, but the increase is starting to ease.
Month…..Median price…..Year-over-year percent change
April…..$190,000…..Up 45.9 percent
May…..$200,0000…..Up 39.9 percent
June…..$215,000…..Up 46.3 percent
July…..$217,000…..Up 47.1 percent
August……$205,675…..Up 38.5 percent
September…..$189,000…..Up 35 percent
October…..$189,704…..Up 35.5 percent
Source: Atlanta Board of Realtors
It isn’t getting much easier to buy a house in metro Atlanta.
The number of houses for sale in the region is up slightly, but prices are, too. So buyers are signing contracts less frequently than they did a year ago.
Home sales in an 11-county metro Atlanta region fell 6.5 percent year-over-year in October, the Atlanta Board of Realtors reported Friday. At the same time, October median prices climbed 35.5 percent.
There are many reasons for the slipping sales and jumping prices: Fewer foreclosures mean fewer low-cost homes on the market. Investors with plans to rent houses are still buying a big chunk of inventory, keeping them from conventional home-shoppers.
Uncertainty about the state of the economy also is keeping some potential buyers on the sidelines.
Additionally, people who might want to sell their home and move into a new one aren’t entirely convinced that they can make a profit, after having spent years underwater.
In July, 38 percent of metro Atlanta homeowners still owed more on their homes than those houses were worth, according to Zillow. It’s far lower than the 55 percent who were underwater a year and a half earlier, but still a large percentage of potential buyers and sellers.
All of it leads to a frustrating experience for buyers, said Wynter Love. She closed on a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Ellenwood on Friday, after two months of looking.
“I went 10 miles outside the area I wanted to be in,” Love said. “It’s a tedious process.”
The housing market surged at the beginning of the year, as buyers who stayed out of the market through the recession finally decided the time was right to buy. Over the past several months, as inventory has remained tight, sales have slowed.
Bill Adams, president of Adams Realtors, said he has gone back to potential sellers who approached him as many as three years ago before deciding the time wasn’t right for them to move.
About three or four of every 10 he talks to are now thinking about selling, he said, but many can no longer afford to move to areas they had once considered.
Adams said even as the market becomes more normal — with supply and demand more in balance — he expects well-priced houses to sell quickly.
In the coming year, prices will not rise as rapidly as they have in 2013, said Nancy See, president of the Atlanta Board of Realtors.
The large number of distressed properties in the region that brought prices down dramatically has eased. See said she expects the number of sales and median prices to be flat for the coming months. From September to October, sales slipped 0.8 percent, and median prices rose 0.6 percent.
“We’re not seeing all the hysteria in the market,” she said. “2014 will be a year of fewer extremes.”
By the typical spring selling season, more homeowners who have been putting off listing their houses will feel comfortable enough to put their homes on the market, said Eugene James, the Atlanta regional director of the housing information company Metrostudy.
For now, the relief from slightly higher inventory levels “wasn’t enough” to have much effect on total sales, he said.
The local first-time move-up buyer — typically 30 percent of the market — is notably absent, said John Hunt, a senior analyst with Smart Numbers, a real estate analysis service.
“The change in price that would encourage them to get back in the game came so quickly that it hasn’t had time to propagate to the public,” he said.
When Love and her husband sold their first home in March, for a $25,000 profit, they expected to rent for some time. But Love said she quickly saw how much prices were rising and decided it would be cheaper to own.
“I feel great about it,” she said. “We’re moving in tomorrow.”
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