HOME SALES SIZZLE

The market rebound continues around Intown

By Collin Kelley INtown Editor

Home sales remain strong around Atlanta this summer, while foreclosures are on a downward trend.

Southeast Mortgage CEO Cal Haupt, who puts out a monthly housing report called The Cal-Culator, said Atlanta’s residential real estate index for June was a 6.2 out of 10 with across the board improvements in home sales, builder confidence, home prices, increased inventory and less foreclosures.

The monthly report for June from the Atlanta Board of Realtors showed the median sales price for single-family homes was $230,000 – up 10.6 percent from June of last year.

Haupt said looking back at May, there was a sharp rise in sales at 6.1 percent, the largest increase since April 2010 when first-time homebuyers scrambled to sign contracts before a lucrative popular tax credit ended.

“New-home sales posted an even stronger rebound with a nearly 19 percent increase from last month, the highest rate since May 2008,” Haupt said, citing data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development with the U.S. Census Bureau.

“These numbers are in line with our recent builder surveys, which indicate that more consumers are getting off the fence and coming back into the marketplace,” said Kevin Kelly, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

RealtyTrac, the online real estate information site and marketplace for foreclosures, reported that the median sales price of distressed and non-distressed U.S. residential properties rose 6 percent in May from the previous month and 13 percent from a year ago, the second consecutive month in a row with a double-digit annual increase and the biggest annual increase since prices bottomed out in March 2012.

New data from the NAHB and Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showed that builder confidence for new singlefamily homes rose to only one point shy of the threshold of what’s considered good building conditions. The index rose four points to a level of 49. Any number over 50 indicates the majority of homebuilders view conditions as “good” rather than “poor.”

“After several months of little fluctuation, a four-point uptick in builder sentiment is a welcome sign and shows some renewed confidence in the industry,” said Kelly.

Foreclosure levels in Atlanta have continued the downward trend that has permeated the real estate industry in 2014. Foreclosures in June dropped to levels not seen since 2002. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that 2,054 foreclosures were reported in June across 13 Atlanta counties, compared to 11,016 during the height of the housing crisis.