Wichita, KS, Housing report for October, 2011

Wichita, KS home Sales and Market Update for

September, 2011

October, 14, 2011 Stan Longhofer, the director of the WSU Center for Real Estate held a industry meeting to discuss the Wichita area Housing market. His observations were:

1: This is the time to buy given the historically low interest rates plus pricing and supply of homes in the Wichita metro area.

2: Dan Jones with Capital Federal said we will see no better time in our lifetime to own and finance a new home

3: Wichita housing market has been showing a slow but growing number of sales over the last few months.

4: The housing forecast shows 2011 sales will end up down by 1.8% but 2012 sales should rise 8.8% in Kansas. Wichita sales are projected to rise 10% in 2012.

5: New home sales will see increases in sales in 2013. Longhofer says there is a lot of pent up demand and those who don’t act in the next year will be kicking themselves for not doing it.

The full report and power point can be found by going to www.kake.com

Rose hill has announced a home buyer incentive plan.

The plan is a 5-year tax incentive for new home construction and a 10 year grant program for the purchase of existing and spec homes. New home buyers will get a 95% tax abatement for 5 years. Both programs are open till Dec. 31, 2012.

This program is similar to one announced Earlier by Maize, KS. That program gives a 100% grant toward property taxes for the 1^st 3 years. The grant then reduces in steps to 40% by the tenth year. This program is a grant for new houses in the city limits of Maize, KS.

South Central Kansas MLS September, 2011 Area Home Report

Existing home sales decreased 5.3% between August and September of this year but increased 20.9% over the same period in 2010. The median sales price is 6.3% higher on a year over year basis. Total sales for the year are down 6% from 2010.

Existing home inventory continues to drop and is 6.9% lower than a year ago.

Months of inventory for existing homes were 6 months in September, 2011. This figure is at the edge of a buyer’s to seller’s market and total new listing taken YTD for 2011 are down 11% from the year before and available listing for sale are down 8% from last year at this time..

23% of all sales in September were Cash sales, 38% were Conventional loans and 25% were FHA loans.

The average sales price of existing homes was $125,973 with sellers receiving an average of 96.2% of their last advertised price. Average days to sale for the last listing on these homes were 92 days for the entire metro area. West Wichita averaged 72 days, NE Wichita average 119 days and Butler County averaged 95 days.

New homes closed last month had an average price of $224,750. New home inventories are down 31% from the same time last year.