August in Review–Ada County:

August sales in Ada County were 421.  That’s a decrease from August ’09 of 19%. Year-To-Date ’10 is now 3,954; an increase of 18% over the first eight months of 2009.  Historically, sales volume is about the same July to August.  From 2006 to now we’ve had two years with decreases, one year with an increase and one year in which it stayed the same.  This August was up over July ’10 by almost 7%.

Of our total sales in August…52% were distressed….up 6% from last month.

Pending sales rose slightly in August to 724; from 700 in July.  Pending sales in April were 1,162; May 806.

The percentage of pending sales in distress fell 3% from July to 43% overall.  That’s down nearly 22% our high in March.  One bright note, default filings continue to slow.

Inventory took its biggest “hit” in August; falling from 3,288 in July to 3,094.  At the same time, the percentage of active inventory that is distressed, showed no change from July…holding steady at 39%.  In Ada County we have 8 months of inventory on hand.  The price category in shortest supply…$200k – $250k at 7.2 months.

Median home continued to improve; holding on to gains made starting in March of this year.  In August our combined median was $163,000; down 4.1% from August ’09.  We’ve been enjoying median price improvement since February.  YTD comparison to ’09 is off 9.6%…and closing.  New Homes median price, for those 59 people who bought new homes in August, increased by almost 6% over this period last year.  At the same time it dropped $27k from July.  Interestingly, average sales price retreated from the $200k numbers in July to $186,608.

source:  acar