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Little Rock, AR - Freshest Figures for New Home Sales Fall Year-Over-Year in February After Climbing Year-Over-Year in January

Posted on: May 07, 2012 09:24:33 AM

In the Little Rock, AR market, new home sales sank year-over-year in February, a drop following an increase in January 2012. New home sales saw a 22.0% decline from a year earlier to 71. This was after the housing market saw a 25.4% jump year-over-year in January.

A total of 1,198 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in February, down from 1,218 for the year that ended in January.

Moving south from a year earlier, new home sales in February 2012 made up 11.5% of overall housing sales, while the year-ago figure was 13.2%. 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, the average price of newly sold homes gained to $213,338 per unit, a 16.3% surge year-over-year. This gain is a reversal from a 3.7% decline in January from a year earlier.

The average mortgage size on newly sold homes saw a rise year-over-year along with new home prices. The average mortgage size saw a 7.4% rise year-over-year to $184,150 in February. Average mortgage size went from $165,997 in January 2011 to $164,676 in January 2012. Of the overall sale price, the percentage that was being financed dipped 7.1 percentage points year-over-year to 86.3% in February 2012. This came after a 2.7 percentage point rise in January from a year earlier.

Other Market Trends

Sales of attached units, as a percentage of new home sales, have climbed from last year while sales of single-family homes have dipped. Attached unit sales grew from no part of all sales in February 2011 to 2.8% of sales in February 2012. At the same time, the share belonging to single-family homes dropped to 97.2% of sales from all of sales.

There was a 19.9% fall year-over-year in the average unit size of newly sold homes to 1,676 square feet in February 2012. For newly sold homes, an average size drop contrasting with an average price bump was also seen in January 2012 when the average size of newly sold homes declined 25.3% to 1,462 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to fall from a year earlier in February, but did not look to be a burden on the market. Together, foreclosures plus REO sales accounted for 22.5% of existing home sales, down from 35.6% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures declined to 9.9% in February from 18.8% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales slipped to 12.6% from 16.8% a year earlier.

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