The Lancaster County Association of Realtors® (LCAR) has released the latest home sales figures for Lancaster County, PA. 501 homes sold in August 2013, a 1.4% increase over the 494 homes sold in August 2012.
The average sale price was $191,047, up 3.5% from $184,607 last August. The median sale price (i.e. half sold above, half sold below) was $169,900. Although this figure is down from $171,900 the previous year, it is partly because higher priced homes have had stronger sales, bringing the average price up, but not the median.
In August, there were 679 new listings, down 6.9% from the 729 listings of August 2012. This is actually a sign of the strength of the market as homes were sold from inventory and fewer new listings have come up for sale.
Pending sales which went under agreement in August went up 5.3% to 455 (from 432). Over half (56%) of those sales were on the market less than 60 days
LCAR president Mike Julian said, “In August, we saw a lot of movement of upper end home sales which is the segment of market that tends to lag behind when the market is struggling. There was a 60% increase in sales of homes priced at $400,000 and over. This is an additional indicator that our local market recovery is still going strong, and our pending sales show that the upper end market will continue at healthy levels in the coming months.”
Although mortgage rates have risen slightly, they are still at historic lows, and buyers are coming out in greater numbers before rates get higher (as they surely will eventually). In Lancaster County, an LCAR poll of local lenders showed an average conventional 30-year fixed rate of 4.27%, and conventional 15-year rate of 3.38% - still excellent. Nationally, one-year adjustable rates averaged 2.63% - not enough difference to be worth taking a risk on unless you knew you would be re-selling a property very quickly.
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