2011 home sales rise slightly but prices fall

Charlotte-area home sales in 2011 rose slightly compared to the previous year, the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association reported Monday.

Nearly 23,000 home sales closed in 2011, up 2.5 percent from the number of sales in 2010, the association says. Sales volume in 2011 hit roughly $4.6 billion. (No comparison with 2010 sales volume was provided.)

The 2011 average sales price of $200,351 was down 3.5 percent compared to the previous year. Homes took seven days longer in 2011 to close, and the time a property was listed until it closed averaged 152 days.

During the month of December, closings were relatively flat compared to the same time last year, with 1,896 properties selling. Overall inventory, or the number of homes listed for sale, fell 27 percent compared to the same time a year earlier, to about a 9.1-month supply of homes. Experts say a healthy market has a six-month supply.

This inventory does not take into account what's known as shadow inventory, or homes that are distressed and could hit the market but are not currently listed for sale. A recent Observer analysis found Mecklenburg County has more than 16,000 homes in shadow inventory.

Housing bust worse than reported

The housing bust was worse than previously thought, with fewer homes having sold than was reported, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors.

The trade group released revised estimates Wednesday showing 15 percent fewer U.S. homes sold between 2007 and 2010 than it previously reported. The group now says there were 4.2 million sales of existing homes nationwide, down from the previously projected 4.9 million sales.

The trade group's statistics are important because private companies and developers rely on them for future planning. They also can influence public policy. The revisions are expected to have a "minor" impact on future revisions to Gross Domestic Product, NAR said.

The association revised its estimates after other industry groups criticized its methodology. Research group CoreLogic, for example, has said it believed the NAR's numbers were off by as much as 20 percent.

NAR doesn't report actual tallies of home sales. Instead, it makes estimates based on what local Realtors report to them.

NAR said Wednesday that problems arose during the housing bust as sellers turned more to Realtors and away from trying to sell real estate themselves. Some Multiple Listing Services expanded into new areas and some properties were listed on more than one service, resulting in double counting, the group says. Homes marketed as for-sale-by-owner are not reported in the MLS.

"It appears that about half of the revisions result solely from a decline in for-sale-by-owners...," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. "The (for-sale-by-owners) market was overwhelmed by the housing downturn, and since most (for-sale-by-owners) are not reported in the MLS, national estimates of existing-home sales began to diverse based on previous assumptions."

Revisions for sales figures by state will be released Feb. 9, said NAR spokesman Walter Molony.

Kim Walker with the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association, which handles the Carolinas Multiple Listing Services said no revisions are expected for Charlotte-area data.

"From a consumer's viewpoint, only the local market information and MLS data matters," she said. Walker also said that "since there were no changes to local CMLS data or to the local supply-and-demand balance, or to local median prices," that she didn't expect to see metro-area specific revisions.

Home sales rose last month but prices fell

Charlotte-area home sales jumped year-over-year in October for the fourth straight month but prices are still falling, new data show.

The region's inventory of available distressed homes also dropped significantly. But the statistics don't take into account a reportedly growing amount of "shadow inventory," or foreclosed homes that aren't on the market.

About 1,882 houses, townhouses and condos sold in the Charlotte region last month, up 12.4 percent from October 2010, according to a report released Wednesday from the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. Closings dropped 4.4 percent from September.

Meanwhile, pending sales - one of the best gauges of current housing activity - rose 14.1 percent in October compared to the year before. Pending contracts are signed contracts that haven't yet closed.

Average sales prices for the month dipped 3.6 percent year-over-year to $194,837. That's down less than one percent from the previous month.

Association President Laurie Knudsen said she was encouraged by the decrease in listing inventory, which suggests the market is working through a glut of available homes. Listings of non-distressed properties fell 10 percent from last year, while the amount of new listings for distressed homes dropped 55 percent.

"They keep talking about shadow inventory," Knudsen said. "But I think part of that shadow inventory has been absorbed in short sales and other sales. We have not suffered as much as the rest of the country. I believe Charlotte is going to remain pretty stable."

Last month, the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed Charlotte was one of the few major markets where home prices in August rose compared to the previous month. Local home prices rose .2 percent from July and fell 3.4 percent from a year earlier.

"People still continue to move here," Knudsen said. "It's still a destination city."