RIAR: Home sales, prices slide in August

WARWICK – The number of single-family homes sold in Rhode Island in August fell to 596, a 21.89-percent drop from the 763 sold during the same month last year, according to statistics released today by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors (RIAR).
The year-over-year median price of those sales fell almost $45,000, or 16.04 percent, to $235,000 from $279,000 in August 2007.
About 27 percent of August’s single-family home sales were foreclosures or short sales, RIAR reported.
RIAR President Rob Scarlia, of RE/MAX 1st Choice in Cranston said in a statement that there has been an increase in year-over-year pending sales, those which are under contract but not yet closed.
“This is a sign that banks aren’t lending and that short-sale deals aren’t going through efficiently,” he said. “Even people with great credit are having a much harder time qualifying for a loan, and short sales are taking an extraordinarily long time to process. The combination of both of these factors is definitely impacting the market.”
As a sign that there is demand in the Ocean State market, Scaralia pointed to a 3.98-percent decrease in inventory, to 6,952 houses on the market from 6,675 a year ago, and a 22.36-percent increase in pending sales compared with the year-ago numbers.
“We’ve seen more people in the market, but getting deals through the financing process is another story,” he said.
The median price for multi-family homes decreased 46.45 percent to $128,250 last month, from $239,500 in August 2007, even as the number of homes sold increased to 132 from 96 a year earlier.
However, 101 of last month’s sales, about 76.52 percent, were either through foreclosure or short sale. Last August, 37.5 percent of multi-family home sales were through foreclosures or short sales, according to the RIAR.
Rhode Island condominium sales fell 26.7 percent in August to 129 last month. Fourteen of those sales were foreclosures or short sales. The median sale price of condos sold in the state in August fell to $232,500, a decline of 4.65 percent from August 2007.
The Rhode Island Association of Realtors has nearly 4,000 member Realtors who last year were involved with more than 14,000 transactions totaling more than $4.24 billion. RIAR is one of more than 1,800 local boards and associations of Realtors comprising the nation’s largest trade association, the National Association of Realtors. For additional information, including town-by-town statistics, visit www.RIliving.com.