National Market Update (Sept. 2011)

August 2011 annualized existing home sales :  5.03 million, 18.6% better than August 2010

Investors accounted for about 22% of all sales, a rate that has not fluctuated much in recent months.

First time buyers accounted for 32%o of sales.

29% of sales were all cash, most of them to investor buyers.

Foreclosures and short sales were 31% of the total.

Freddie Mac reports the average interest rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage was 4.27% in August and more recently reported a record low of 4.09%

If you’d like to see a monthly history of interest rates, check out this chart.  It’s fascinating to imagine (or to remember as in my case) what it was like to sell real estate in the early 80s!

18% of NAR members reported at least one cancellation in August, compared with 16% in July and 9% in August 2010.

National median home sale price was $168,300, down 5.1% from August 2010.

There is an 8.5 month supply of homes in inventory, down from 9.5 months in July.

Annualized rate of savings was $600 billion compared with $250 billion a year in the ten years prior to the financial crisis.  There are a lot of people saving up a down payment!

Consumer confidence:  44.5, the lowest in 50 years except for Fall of 2008 – Spring of 2009, when we had massive hemorrhaging in the financial markets.

Source:  National Association of REALTORS

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