In October, the Austin, TX market saw a fall year-over-year in new home sales, a shift downward off a hike in September 2011. Sales sank 11.5% from a year earlier to 415. This followed a 13.0% hike year-over-year in September.

A total of 6,140 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in October, down from 6,194 for the year that ended in September.

Of the total number of sales, new home sales made up 20.2%. A year ago, new home sales represented 19.7%. After rising year-over-year in September, sales of new and existing homes sank year-over-year in October.

In October, the average value of new homes saw a 4.4% rise year-over-year as it grew to $258,099 per unit. This is an upward shift from a 4.9% decline in September from a year earlier.

For newly sold homes, the average mortgage size rose year-over-year along with new home prices. In October 2011, there was a 2.9% rise in the average mortgage size, reaching $234,678. In September 2011, average mortgage size on newly sold homes saw a 7.3% decline from a year earlier. For new home sales, the percentage of the sale price that was being financed fell 1.2 percentage points year-over-year to 90.9% in October 2011.

As a share of new home sales, single-family home sales have climbed from last year while the share belonging to attached units has fallen. Single-family home sales climbed from 90.8% of new sales in October 2010 to 95.4% of sales in October 2011. Conversely, the share of new home sales belonging to attached units slid to 4.6% of sales from 9.2% of sales.

For all new homes sold, the average unit size dipped 6.6% year-over-year to 2,180 square feet in October 2011. For newly sold homes, an average size drop contrasting with an average price rise was also seen in September 2011 when the average size of newly sold homes declined 17.3% to 1,916 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to fall from a year earlier in October, but did not look to be a burden on the market. Foreclosures and REO sales, taken together, made up 19.3% of existing sales, lower than 36.5% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures declined to 10.1% in October from 18.8% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales slipped to 9.2% from 17.7% a year earlier.

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