New home sales increased year-over-year in September in the Austin, TX market, but with a less pronounced percentage bump than August 2011, there are signs of market stabilization. There was a 12.6% rise in new home sales in 579 from a year earlier. This came after a 25.8% hike year-over-year in August.

In the 12 months ending September 2011, there were 6,188 new home sales, up from an annualized 6,123 in August.

Of 2,908 total sales, 579 were of new homes. This is better than 18.5% of sales a year earlier. For new and existing homes, sales rose year-over-year in September after also increasing in August year-over-year.

The average price of newly sold homes declined 5.0% year-over-year in September to $226,541 per unit. This decline follows a move from $239,425 per unit in August 2010 to $238,162 in August 2011.

For newly sold homes, the average mortgage size fell year-over-year along with average price of new homes. In September 2011, average mortgage size on new homes sold was $199,336, down 7.4% from a year earlier. In August 2011, average mortgage size slipped 4.2% from a year earlier. The overall percentage of sale price that was being financed declined 2.3 percentage points year-over-year to 88.0% in September 2011.

As a share of new home sales, single-family home sales have climbed from last while the share belonging to attached units has fallen. Single-family home sales jumped from 92.4% of new sales in September 2010 to 95.2% of sales in September 2011. Conversely, the share of new home sales belonging to attached units declined to 4.8% of sales from 7.6% of sales.

For all new homes sold, the average unit size slid 17.3% year-over-year to 1,916 square feet in September 2011. A decrease in both the average size and price of newly sold homes was also seen in August 2011 when average size climbed 12.5% to 2,018 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to decline from a year earlier in September and did not appear to be dragging the market. Out of all existing home sales, foreclosures combined with REO sales represented 20.5% of sales, below 41.3% of sales a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales belonging to foreclosures fell to 10.6% of sales in September from 26.1% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales fell to 9.9% of sales from 15.2% of sales a year earlier.

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