The median sale price of existing homes reached an all-time Wichita high, $114,900, but the number of houses sold is down by 19.8%.
Maybe the reason home sales are down is that there is a shortage in the price range buyers are looking for. Wayne Short, a former head of the Wichita Area Association of Realtors, provides a breakdown of Wichita's May home inventories by price range. While there are over four months supply of of houses under $100,00 and nine and a quarters months supply of houses between a quarter million and a half million, there were only 3.16 months supply of houses in the $100,000 to $150,000 range. You can find the data in the July 12th posting on his blog.
Builders make their fattest margins from fancier houses, but there might be some money to be made on new houses for ordinary folk.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
As i read this article, the numbers given weren't all that suprising to me. The housing market was in decline when this was posted, and it is still in great trouble. We have seen the value of homes drop, leaving many people discouraged because their most valuable possession is not worth near what it used to be. I think this is causing a lot of people to not want to sell their homes, which could be partly responsible for the 19.8% decrease in the number of houses sold.
I think it is obvious that the there is a larger supply of more expensive houses simply because people just can't afford them. Our economy is in trouble, and until it begins to recover, I don't think these numbers will change much.
Post a Comment