June 20, 2011 (Jeff Alan)

As should be expected for this time of the year, the number of homes listed for sale in May increased by 3.5 percent compared to April to a total of 2.3 million listings, however, what wouldn’t be expected during the normally busy spring selling season is a 1.6 percent month-over-month price drop, but according to the latest data released by Realtor.com that’s exactly what happened.

With home prices finally starting to show a little resiliency and strength the last two months, and with some recent indices actually showing price increases, this month’s data definitely shows that these are not normal times and that we should expect an up and down housing market for some time to come.

The median sales price for a home in May 2011 was $188,900, which is down from the median price of $191,900 in April, and was 2 percent lower than the median price of $192,900 in May of 2010.

The area with the largest drop in median home prices was the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc, CA area where median prices dropped 26.9 percent in May compared to April.

The area with the largest increase in the median price was the Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL area where the median price increased 27.3 percent from April to May.

The average list price for a home in May was $312,189, which was 4 percent lower than April, and 2.2 percent lower than May 2010.

Although overall housing inventory showed a month-over-month increase, the number of homes listed for sale was 14.3 percent lower than in May of last year.

The number of days that a home spent on the market was down to 92, which was a 3.2 percent drop from April, but was still 4.6 percent higher than a year ago.

Realtor.com is the official website for the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and they will be releasing their Existing Home Sales report tomorrow. It should be interesting to see what they have to say!

Tags: Realtor.com, housing inventory, listed homes, home prices, median sales price, average list price

Source:
Realtor.com