I’ve just been looking over the mid year real estate sales reports for the Alabaster area which includes the communities of Maylene and Saginaw. This is also known as area 272 in the Birmingham Multiple Listing service, which is where I got the information. I think you will like what you see, so lets dive in.
2013 vs. 2012- So far in 2013 there have been 227 homes that have sold, which includes all single family homes in all price ranges. This is up from 196 in 2012, for an increase of almost 16%. This increase follows what many are saying across the country, that sales are picking up as the economy slowly recovers. The average sale price this year is $160,151 compared to $150,879 in 2012, which means that the average price of a home is roughly 6% higher than it was last year. One factor that I believe is contributing to the higher average sale price is the decline in distress sales, which includes foreclosures and short sales. Last year there were 63 foreclosures that occurred in the first 6 months compared to 59 this year. This is good news because the percentage of foreclosure sales to normal sales has been hovering around 35% for the longest time. Because foreclosures typically sell for less than normal sales there is less of a negative impact on the overall average sales price.
2013 vs. 2006- You may wonder why I’m comparing the current market with that of 2006. The reason is that is about the time we started to see prices starting to dip as a result of the crash in the real estate market, so this could be considered the height of the market. By comparing now to then we can get an idea of where we stand. There were approximately 365 homes sold in MLS area 272 during the first half of the year. This reflects a decline of 38% in sales volume from then until now. Something else I found interesting was that during that time period there were only 9 foreclosures reported by the MLS, which reflects only about 2.5% of the total sales. Wow! That is nothing compared to the 26% we saw this year, however we should not be discouraged because we are starting to head back down. As I mentioned previously about foreclosures, the less there are the less impact they have on the average sale price, which happened to be $193,194 at that time. Do you get a better idea of how current Alabaster market trends stand in relation to when we were at the peak?
So Where Are The Sales Occurring Now?- So far in 2013 the top 6 subdivisions in sales volume in the Alabaster, Maylene, and Saginaw area have been Park Forest and Lacey’s Grove with 15 sales, Sterling Gate with 13 sales, Lake Forest with 10 sales, and Wynlake with 9 sales. Take a look at this in graph form.
The majority of these sales were of existing homes with the exception being the Lacey’s Grove subdivision. There were 15 sales in this neighborhood the first half of 2013 with 14 being new construction and 1 existing home resale. While the market is beginning to rebound, and sales are increasing, I believe that prices will be later to respond. They will eventually start to climb but right now prices are such that you can get a better deal buying existing homes than building a new one.
Sales in these neighborhoods are following the characteristics of the overall area with average prices and number of sales increasing over the first half of 2012. Take a look at the numbers in the chart below.
Do you have any questions or thoughts on this topic?
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Nice job Tom. I enjoyed reading this. It’s always interesting to compare to the previous year and the peak.
Thanks Ryan. It helps us with perspective when we have some other time period to compare with what is happening now.