Albuquerque Real Estate Report for October 2012

It was good month for Albuquerque real estate sales, at least in terms of total sales, rebalancing of inventory and market time for the properties that sold.

Albuquerque Real Estate Sales in October

Please take a second to look at the key below. Light green bars are the active listings and represent the homes that were for sale, the dark green bars are the homes that closed, and the number indicated by the triangles are the homes that were in pending status during October that had not closed.

Year Over Year Stats

Let's look first at the year over year numbers, meaning let's compare October 2012 with October 2011.

It's important to look at year over year stats because the Albuquerque real estate market is cyclical in nature. Home sales almost always follow the same pattern over the course of a year. They start off slow, then they build up momentum as the summer approaches, peaking in the  summer, then declining as we approach the Holidays. Comparing sales from one month to the next reflects this trend and can lead to false conclusions. 

Here is a quick summary of the year over year stats:

• Active listings were down from 3,192 to 2,791, a decrease of 12.6%
• Closed home sales were up from 437 to 538, an increase of 23.1%
• Pending home sales, those homes that went into pending status during October and were not yet closed, were up 25.6%

Those are all very good numbers for the Albuquerque real estate market, which is struggling to recover and make consistent, sizeable gains on pricing.

Month to Month Stats

Using the same chart above, it's interesting to look at month to month stats to see what conclusions can be drawn. To do this let's compare October 2012 real estate stats with September 2012 real estate stats. As I mentioned before, typically this time of year the market is beginning to slow down. It's not unusual to see a decline in sales and a slight increase in active listings. Here us a quick summary of the month to month stats:

• Active listings were down from 2,817 to 2,791 a decrease of 0.9%
• Closed home sales were up from 522 to 538, an increase of 3.1%
• Pending sales were up from 532 to 545, an increase of 2.4%

It looks like October was a very good month in comparison to September, with at leat modest improvements in all three areas.

Albuquerque Real Estate Prices

The stats look good then for the Albuquerque real estate market in terms of total sales and rebalancing of inventory, but what about home prices. When we talk about recovery, isn't this what we're really looking for, consistent improvement in the average sales price ? Did it show improvement in October?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Here are the details:

• The average sales price declined from $196,000 in October 2011 to $192,000 in October 2012, a 2% year over year decrease. 
• The average sales price declined from $200,000 in September 2012 to $192,000 in October 2012, a 4% month to month decrease.

Final Thoughts

There are two more stats that bode well for the Albuquerque real estate market: 

• Market time, the average number of days it takes for a home to get an offer and enter escrow improved considerably, going from 79 days last October to 63 days this October.
• Foreclosure inventory is down.