Home sale market improves for buyers

By Joe Mosley
The Register-Guard

Sellers kept the hot hand, but buyers began easing back into the Lane County real estate game in September as inventory improved somewhat after hitting a 2 1/2 -year low this summer.

New residential listings increased by 3.5 percent in September, compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the monthly report from RMLS, a Portland-based firm that runs the Lane County market's multiple-listing service.

The increase in new listings combined with a 2 percent drop in pending sales to push the county's inventory to 1,130 active residential listings at the month's end. At September's rate of sales, that translates to a 2.6 month supply of homes - up from the 2.2 month supply of July and August.

The national real estate market also remained upbeat in September, with sales of previously owned houses rising 3.1 percent from August to a total of 6.75 million, the National Association of Realtors said this week.

"The housing market just refuses to falter," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, in Holland, Penn. "With mortgage rates quite low, there is little reason to expect demand to drop suddenly."

Sales of previously owned homes account for 85 percent of the residential real estate market in the United States.

Here's how the ongoing real estate boom played out in Lane County during September:

• There were 401 pending sales in the month, down 2 percent from the 409 of September 2003.

• Closed sales totaled 442, up 7.8 percent from a year earlier.

• New listings rose by 3.5 percent, to 529, compared to 511 in September 2003.

• The average sale price for September was $191,000, up 10.3 percent from the $173,200 average for the same month last year.

• The median sale price - the price with the same number of sales above and below it - was $162,400. That's 4.6 percent above the $155,200 median price from a year earlier.