February Real Estate Housing Market Report

February 13, 2014 – The REAL Trends Housing Market Report for January 2014 shows that the rate of housing sales increased at the slowest rate in the last 30 months on a year over year basis. Sales of new and existing homes in January 2014 increased 1.1 percent over the rate of sales in January 2013. The annual rate of new and existing home sales for January 2014 was 6.043 million units up slightly from 5.976 million units sold in January 2013. 

The average price of homes sold increased by 13.3 percent in January 2014 compared to January 2013 on the strongest showings in the last year.

Housing unit sales for January 2014 increased 4.8 percent in the Northeast, the strongest showing in the country. The next highest region was in the South region with an increase of 4.1 percent, the Midwest region was down 1.3 percent and the West was down 3.7 percent.

The average price of homes sold in January 2014 increased 13.3 percent across the country, a wide increase over the same year over year results from December 2013. The West region had the best results with the average price of homes sold increasing 18.7 percent followed by the Northeast region at 14.1 percent, the Midwest region at 9.9 percent and the South saw average prices rise 9.4 percent.

“January 2014 sales of new and existing homes reflected the decline in the affordability rate in most regions, the widespread inclement weather and the rise in interest rates. The slowdown in year over year unit sales also reflects the absence of real growth in employment and household incomes,” said Steve Murray, editor of the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. “As we stated last month we believe that unit sales are nearing a normal level given employment, the number of households, mortgage rates and household income. We expect that year over year increases will continue to be only slightly improved on a year over year basis in the months ahead.”

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