All the sales are not posted yet, but so far 1,714 sales have closed with a median sales price of $105,000. This could be a trick and a treat. I had estimated about 1,800 sales for the month, but it looks like it may be closer to 2,000. There are typically several hundred that do not get posted until the week after the end of the month. The trick was the price. I had expected to see a median sales price increase to $115,000 or so. My expectation was that the temporary halt to foreclosures would result in a higher median price. Short sales took a huge dip in price last month keeping the median price about the same as September. Of the posted sales 672 or 39.2% were bank owned, 451 or 26.3% were short sales and 591 or 34.5% were equity sales. The median sales prices of each were $68,000, $90,000 and $170,000 respectively. While both bank owned and equity sales posted higher prices from September's sales, short sales fell from a median of $111,000.
Cash sales in October remained strong with 930 closings or 54.3% of all sales posted so far coming in as all cash deals. Again cash sales were typically made up of the least expensive properties with a median sales price of only $59,000. Pending sales are slightly higher than they were at the end of September with 8,896. Of those 1,975 are bank owned, 5,667 are short sales and 1,252 are equity sales. The number of short sales and equity sales are each slightly higher, and bank owned are a bit lower than they were prior to the temporary halt in foreclosures. The number of listings temporarily off the market has gone up slightly since my first report on this two weeks ago to 1,422. Bank owned have increased by about 100 and short sales are up by 30. Equity sales are nearly unchanged with just two more homes placed in TOM status.
The inventory of active listings has continued to fall with 15,428 properties currently listed for sale. That is a 5.7% drop since last month when 16,359 homes were available on the market. Of the 931 fewer properties 439 came from the ranks of bank owned which have dropped from 2,176 to 1,737. Another 244 have come from the short sales which declined from 6,204 to 5,960. The smallest percentage decline came from equity sales with 248 fewer listings representing a 3.1% drop compared to a 20.1% drop in the number of bank owned properties available for sale. At least for right now the slowdown in foreclosures is having a direct impact on our inventory. I have no explanation for the sudden drop in short sale prices. Had they remained in the $111,000 range we likely would have seen a median price in the $115,000 range this month, but the short sales had other plans.
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