Ada County Home Sales For May

Home sales in Ada County during May showed a modest improvement over April's numbers, with 504 single family homes closed for the month. While that doesn't seem like much, the monthly increases are showing a normal trend for this time of year. We have a market that is acting normally, albeit at lower levels than we are used to seeing. Last year we had 735 homes sold, so our sales as of May this year are down 33% from a year ago. Remember that in April we were 34% behind, and before that we had been as high as 42%. We seem to be trending in the right direction. Today, sales for the month of June to date are only 16% behind the same date last year.

Currently there are 4658 active listings on our MLS, which is a bit higher than last year's 4524, and nearly one hundred more than we had at the beginning of the month. That doesn't help the sellers to get better prices for their homes, since there are still plenty of choices on the market, in all price ranges. The lower end homes are selling well, as would be expected, with the best conditioned homes occasionally drawing multiple offers. Price and condition remain the key to selling homes in this market.

There are 718 pending contracts on the market now, which is slightly higher than last month. What is encouraging about that is the comparison to last year. The decline from a year ago in sales has been getting better as I mentioned. But the difference in this year's pendings to last year's is getting better even faster. Pendings at the end of May were only 19% below a year ago, where sales were 33% below. I would expect that to translate into firmer sales figures going through the summer months, and so far that is holding up.

Everything considered, it is still a buyer's market. There is plenty to chose from out there right now, and prices are back to levels that make much of Ada County very affordable. Sellers need to price their properties correctly, and then have them looking their very best, in order to find a willing buyer. Homes priced even a little over market are not getting showings, where others that are priced correctly are seeing many showings and even multiple offers.