July's Resale Numbers Continue to Slow

Thursday, August 10, 2006

MESA, Ariz. - With 5,545 recorded sales, the resale home market in July continued the slowing trend. Although this activity is slightly above the 5,460 sales of June 2006, it is well below last year's 10,200 recorded sales. Historically, resale housing activity in June and July is one of the better times of the year. This is the weakest July since 5,240 sales were recorded in July 1999. So far in 2006, there have been a total of 41,835 sales, while it stood at 68,235 sales in 2005 YTD. While it was very unlikely that the market could have sustained the level of 2005, the current level of activity is very comparable to that recorded in the years of 2003 YTD (41,200 sales) and 2004 YTD (56,745 sales).

The primary news of the last year's housing market was the rapid rise in the median home price from $194,000 in January to $260,000 in December. For July 2006, the median home price of $264,900 was a retreat from the record $267,000 in June, but was above the $255,000 recorded a year ago.

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