The new year brings an opportunity to look at the Huntsville single family real estate market using local MLS statistics and assess our market's condition as well as take a brief look at what 2008 may bring.
The first market indicator we will look at is the favorite of all current home owners: Price Appreciation. There are two area wide statistics that are worthy of consideration; one is the average sales price and the other the average sales price per square foot. Since both are simple averages and can become skewed by short term market anomalies, I would recommend being conservative and utilizing the smaller of the two if you use them to estimate your own property's appreciation.
Year over year the average sales price of single family homes in the North Alabama area increased 5.96% from $160,431 in 2006 to $169,985 in 2007. Taking a look at the average sales price per square foot we find that these same homes increased 3.9% from $77 in 2006 and $80 in 2007. The following chart adds these calculations to 4 years of previously recorded data to put this year's results into historical context.
Year over year the North Alabama real estate market as a whole grew 3.25% from 2006 sales of ~$1,906 million to ~$1,968 million in sales during 2007. Taking this figure along with five years of historical data yields the following chart:
Sales remained good though a flattening is apparent in the chart due to a slower sales growth in 2007 compared to previous years. Moreover units sold declined 2.55% year over year from a 2006 level of 11884 homes to 11581 homes sold in 2007. Taking this figure along with five years of historical data yields the following chart:
During 2007, Huntsville has avoided the downward pull on sales and prices that much of the rest of the country is dealing with in the current housing /mortgage malaise. However there are a few indications of recent weakness that we will take a look at and keep an eye on in our monthly market updates.
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