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Honolulu, HI - Freshest New Home Sales Numbers Give Hints Market Decline is Slowing

Posted on: May 07, 2012 09:16:48 AM

New home sales in the Honolulu, HI market declined year-over-year in February, but the percentage decline was not as steep as January 2012, suggesting that the market may be stabilizing. New home sales fell by 8.9% in February 2012 from a year earlier, after sales saw a 49.3% fall in January from the year earlier.

A total of 1,032 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in February, down from 1,037 for the year that ended in January.

Out of all housing sales, new home sales represented 8.6%. A year ago, new home sales made up 7.8%. Sales of new and existing homes fell year-over-year in February after also falling in January year-over-year.

Pricing and Mortgage Trends

In February, there was a 19.5% gain in the average price of newly sold homes year-over-year, reaching $657,258 per unit. This is a reversal from the 3.9% decline in January from a year earlier.

Average mortgage size on new homes fell year-over-year in contrast to new home prices. It dipped 6.8% in February from a year earlier to $425,882. Average mortgage size rose 2.5% in January 2012 from a year earlier. Of the overall sale price, the percentage that was being financed declined 18.3 percentage points year-over-year to 64.8% in February 2012. This was a swing downward after a 5.2 percentage point rise in January from a year earlier.

Other Market Trends

The share of new home sales made up by attached units has risen while the share belonging to single-family homes has fallen. The share of new home sales belonging to attached units grew from 21.4% of sales in February 2011 to 41.2% of sales in February 2012. Conversely, the share belonging to single-family homes slid to 58.8% of sales from 78.6% of sales.

The average unit size of newly sold homes gained 34.2% year-over-year to 1,274 square feet in February 2012. The bump was sharper than the surge in average price of newly sold homes, making the movement simliar to January 2012 when the average size increased 4.7% to 923 square feet from a year earlier.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to decline from a year earlier in February, but did not appear to be dragging the market. Out of all existing home sales, foreclosures combined with REO sales accounted for 9.2% of sales, below 28.9% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures sank to 2.6% in February from 16.5% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales declined to 6.6% from 12.3% a year earlier.

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