December 2014 marked the end of a better year for home and condominium sales. The market came back with both more sales and higher prices. December marked a long uphill climb of nearly two years of returning sales, with a continuing upswing over the past twenty-two months.
Due to a lack of available inventory, there has been a decline in the confidence of the home market by realtors. On a 100-point scale, realtors’ confidence was marked at only fifty percent for December, and that number has been dropping steadily for just over a year. Confidence in inventory dropped 13 percent between December 2013 and 2014. Confidence in pricing fell over the same period to 73.42 percent, a drop of 2 percent.
While the confidence scale of realtors may be down, the buyers seem to be more willing to purchase. Mortgage interest rates have been going down and buyers are taking advantage of these lower prices to purchase now rather than later.
Pending sales for single family homes rose 28.7 percent in December 2014 over December 2013. With a median price of $333,000, the average price of these homes increased by 4.1 percent. The median price of condominiums rose by 3.9 percent to $318,500. There was, also, a rise of 9.9 percent in sales of condominiums for the same time period as single family homes.
As median prices continue to rise, more owners may be motivated to sell and an upswing in market inventory may follow suit. Those who have kept homes may decide now is the time to sell and purchase another home.
While limited inventory is still hampering the market and making it more of a challenge to find the home or condominium of the buyers’ dreams, there are still buyers out there. Prices are rising higher with competition for the inventory, but it does not appear to be stopping those who can borrow at the lower interest rates offered by today’s mortgages.
