February Home Sales Much Improved

Good News. It looks like January's awful home sales numbers were an anomaly. February home sales were much improved compared with January. The 58 reported home sales was an increase of 27.59% compared with February sales of 2011. This gives year over year monthly home sales improvements for eight of the last nine months.

The Logan Real Estate market really looks as if has bottomed out and is recovering. February Home sales were up by 32% compared with January.



Year over year home sales improvements look as if they will continue into the future as there are 26 more homes under contract than there was at this time last year.

The amount of real estate inventory in Cache County rose slightly from last month. There are currently 583 homes for sale listed on the Utah MLS. At this time last month there were 570. This is normal as the spring season is traditionally the most popular time for new listings. At February's home sales pace, the current inventory has an absorption rate of ten months. There are 120 less homes for sale than there was at this time last year.



Home prices are still quite low in Cache Valley, although list prices are on the rise. The median list price of Cache County homes is $178,000 with an average list price of $224,000. Mortgage interest rates are still at historic lows, and 30 year fixed loans can be obtained for less than 4%.

The overall real estate market conditions make it a great time to buy Logan Utah Real Estate.

Cache County Home Sales Up, Condo Sales Way up for First Half of 2010

It's hard to believe, but 2010 is nearly half way over. Real Estate sales in Cache County are up for the first half of the year compared with the first half of last year, and Cache Valley Condo sales are more than double what they were last year.

For single family houses in Cache County Utah, sales were up 8.76% from a year ago. There wasn't really a price disparity between the percentage change of more expensive homes and less expensive homes. Cache Valley homes priced below $200,000 saw a sales increase of 8.76%, and Home's priced above $200,000 saw an increase by 8.77%. Last year, homes priced above $200,000 saw a 41% decline compared with the first half of 2008.

Sales of Condos in Logan Utah were more than double last years numbers. 92 Condos and Townhouses sold this year compared with just 43 at this time last year. The average price of condos also declined, the average sold price this year of $124,100 is 10.66% less than last year. The median sales price of condos was just down by 5.14%.

While the quantity of homes that sold was up, prices were way down. The median price of homes sold in Cache County through the first half of the year was $156,000, down 8.18% compared with last years median price of $169,900. The average sold price was down slightly more at 8.54%.

Most of the individual cities in Cache County saw improvements in home sales, with the exception of Providence, and Hyde Park Real Estate. Logan Real Estate sales were up 18.14%, Smithfield Real Estate Sales Rose 26.79%, Hyrum Real Estate Sales increased 24.5%, Nibley Real Estate sales improved 20.6%, Wellsville Real Estate saw 5 more home sales, North Logan Real Estate sales increased 26.7%, and the rural Cache County communities saw home sales improvements of 16.33%.

Cache County Home Sales Up 36%, Inventory Also Way Up

Home sales in Cache County during May were way up. The 114 Cache County homes reported sold on the WFRMLS mark the highest single month of home sales in Cache County in nearly 22 months, with the exception of July of last year when 117 residential homes sold. Many of these home sales can be attributed to the expiration of the home buyer tax credit at the end of April. For the number of homes that sold, this represents a 36% increase compared with May of last year, and a 16.67% increase compared with April.

Prices of May home sales was down by 6% compared with May of last year. The average price of Cache Valley homes sold was $168,614 while the median price was $153,220. The median price was one of the lowest monthly medians since early 2006. The homes that sold were also smaller than normal, with an average square footage of 2,098 square feet.
Because many of the home purchases were advanced as result of the government stimulus, the future Logan Real Estate market isn't looking quite as bright. Real Estate inventory is way up, there are 58 more homes on the market than there were just a month ago. The current 839 Cache County Homes for Sale is getting close to the highest number of home listings Cache County has ever had.

Home sales in the next few months should be down for Cache Valley Real Estate. The 162 homes that are currently under contract is down 29% from last month. We should expect a drop in real estate activity during June and July as hangover from the tax credit. It will be interesting to see what happens with the local real estate market at the end of the summer.

Home Sales, Under Contracts, and # Of Listings in Cache County Up

The number of homes sold in Cache County during March was up 16.25% compared with March of last year. 80 residential Cache County homes sold, which is up 35% from February's home sale numbers. The number of homes under contract has also risen in the last month. There are currently 167 residential properties under contract in Cache Valley. This is up 15% from just two weeks ago. A lot of buyers are active right now in effort to beat the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit. This means that we will see strong home sales numbers over the next few months.

While increased number of home sales is positive for the recovery of the Logan Real Estate economy, there are also more homes currently for sale.

Right now Cache County has 794 residential homes for sale. This is more actively listed MLS homes than there has ever been at the beginning of April.

Prices of homes sold in Cache County has declined recently. During March, homes sold for about 10% less than they did during March of last year. The average sold price was $170,902 and the median point was $152,250.

The price per square footage has also dropped. The average home that sold in Cache County during march was 2,263 square foot, and sold for just under $76 per square foot.

Cornerstone Real Estate #1 Brokerage for Q1 Home Sales

The numbers are in, and for the first quarter of 2010 Cornerstone Real Estate Professionals is the number one Logan Utah Real Estate brokerage in terms of total home sales.

Even more impressive is the huge advantage Cornerstone has for the number of buyer transactions among the major Cache Valley Real Estate brokerages. For the second quarter, Cornerstone had nearly three times more buyers transactions than Parker Real Estate, Youngblood Real Estate, and ERA Advantage Realty. It also had nearly twice as many transactions as Century 21, @Home Realty Network, and Coldwell Banker.

From: Cornerstone #1 Cache County Real Estate Brokerage.

Cache County Real Estate Market Healthy Below $160,000.

Real Estate in Cache County is pretty healthy for homes priced less than $160,000. This price is the median point for home sales, meaning that half of the homes that sold were $160,000 or less. The interesting thing is that of the current active home listings, only 1/3rd are priced below $160,000. This essentially means that if you are buying a home in the higher price ranges, you have twice as much inventory to choose from.

Compared with the homes that sold last year, there is less than 7 months of active inventory for listings priced less than $160,000. Cache County Homes priced between $160,000 and $180,000 see 7.36 months of inventory, and homes priced above $180,000 have more than 10 months of inventory. This chart shows the absorption rate broken down by different price ranges:

As you can see, homes priced above $500,000 are having a very difficult time selling. Last year just eight of these high end homes sold. There are currently 44 homes priced above half a million on the market. On average these homes have already been on the market for 310 days.

Logan Utah Real Estate Sales start 2010 off..... poorly?

Nobody knows exactly how well the Logan Real Estate market will do this year. Most of the Realtors I've talked too are optimistic that it is starting to improve, that things will be better. The last half of last year were much improved with their year over year comparisons.

Well the numbers for the first month of 2010 are mostly in. And so far, the numbers look pretty dismal. I normally don't do market condition stats quite this early simply because there are always some slow Logan Realtors out there who just forget to update their listings in the MLS. But, if these numbers hold accurate, home sales this January are worse than last year, and mark the single worst month for number of Cache County Home sales in nearly nine years.

Thus far, only 39 residential MLS listings in Cache County have been reported as sold. This is down nearly 5% from January last year, which was the worst month of the year for home sales.

The average price of homes sold during January was also down. The 39 homes that sold had an average price of $166,581 and a median sold price at just $146,250. This is the lowest single month average since May of 2006.

While home sales and prices were down, the amount of Logan Utah Homes for Sale was up. Cache County currently has 718 residential homes for sale. This is nearly 30 more homes for sale than we had during February of last year.

Cache County Home Sales down 25%

2009 is half way over. Home sales in Cache County are clearly down. Over the past six months sales of Cache County Houses are down 25.16% and Condo sales are down 24.56%. Average and median prices of homes are also down. The median sales price dropped by 5% and the average sales price was down 6.73%.

One interesting disparity is the difference between home sales more and less than $200,000. While homes priced less than $200,000 were only down 15.54%, home sales for prices above $200,000 were down by more than 41%. Home sales were also significantly down in Wellsville, not because Wellsville is less popular this year, but because most of the Wellsville Homes for Sale are too expensive.