There was an increase in new home sales in the Indianapolis, IN market in September year-over-year, but with an increase less steep than that of August 2011, the market seemed to be showing signs of evening out. New home sales saw a rise of 12.0% from the year earlier to 233. This followed a 48.2% hike year-over-year in August.

A total of 2,150 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in September, up from 2,125 for the year that ended in August.

Of 2,035 total sales, 233 were of new homes. This is a rise from 8.3% of sales a year earlier. Sales of new and existing homes declined year-over-year in September after also falling in August year-over-year.

In September, the average per-unit price of new homes slipped by 1.8% year-over-year to $221,407. This decline follows a move from $217,256 per unit to $217,544 from September 2009 to August 2011.

For newly sold homes, the average mortgage size slid year-over-year in contrast to average price of new homes. In September 2011, average mortgage size on new homes sold was $193,618, down 11.1% from a year earlier. In August 2011, average mortgage size on newly sold homes saw a 5.6% decline from a year earlier. For new home sales, the percentage of the sale price that was being financed dipped 9.2 percentage points year-over-year to 87.4% in September 2011.

The percentage of new home sales belonging to single-family homes has risen from last year while the portion of new home sales belonging to attached units has dropped. Single-family home sales increased from 93.3% of new sales in September 2010 to 97.0% of sales in September 2011. At the same time, the share of new home sales belonging to attached units sank to 3.0% of sales from 6.7% of sales.

For all new homes sold, the average unit size dropped 44.2% year-over-year to 1,636 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 the average size rose 2.5% to 2,079 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales declined in September from a year earlier, but stayed a drag on the market. Together, foreclosures plus REO sales represented 36.7% of existing home sales, down from 61.1% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures declined to 13.8% in September from 31.3% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales declined to 22.9% from 29.8% a year earlier.

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