Dayton Area Home Sales for March 2007
The pace of single-family sales activity remained slower in March compared to the previous year, as the 1,072 sales reported to the Board’s Multiple Listing Service represented a 14% decline from last year’s 1,248 sales. This is the ninth time in the last ten months that sold totals have dropped in year-over-year comparison. Figures for the first three months of 2007, however, paint a much more favorable picture. A total of 2,791 sales completed in the first quarter, although a 9% decline compared to 2006’s record of 3,070 transactions, still represented the second highest total ever for the winter-quarter.
Sales volumes for March topped $140.1 million and generated an average sale of $130,741 per single-family unit. This is a 2.68% appreciation compared to March of 2006 when the average was $127,326. Although home values nationally continue to decline significantly, our local average sale price has held steady in year-over-year comparison. The average sale price for the first quarter, based on a volume of $349.6 million, was $125,290 per unit, just a 1.4% decline from a year earlier.
The rate of single-family listings being added to the inventory is also leveling off. Listings submitted in March totaled 2,911, nearly identical to last year’s total of 2,904.
There were 7,279 listings added in the first quarter this year, a 3.7% decline compared to 7,559 in 2006. This is the first quarterly decline in listing totals in year-over year comparison since the third quarter of 2003.
The overall MLS inventory at the end of March stood at 9,512 available single-family listings. Although this figure represents an increase compared to the 8,925 listings available at the end of February, the actual supply of listings based on March’s higher resale rate has dropped to 8.8-months, compared to a 9.7-month supply at the end of February. In 2006 at the same time the single-family inventory stood at 8,540 listings and the supply ratio was only 6.84 months due to the higher resale rate at that time.
Statistics compiled by John Junker, MLS Data Specialist