In October, sales of new homes jumped year-over-year in the Lakeland, FL market, and the percentage gain was better than September 2011, suggesting the market may be strengthening. New home sales saw a 42.3% climb from last year to 101, compared with a 1.0% hike from 105 in September 2010 to 106 in September 2011.

A total of 982 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in October, up from 952 for the year that ended in September.

As a percentage of overall housing sales, new home sales represented 12.3%. This is up from the 6.9% of sales a year earlier. Sales of new and existing homes sank year-over-year in October after also falling in September year-over-year.

For newly sold homes, there was a 11.0% bump year-over-year of average price in October, moving to $181,209. This is an upward shift from a 1.4% decline in September from a year earlier.

Average mortgage size on new homes slid year-over-year in contrast to new home prices. Average mortgage size fell by 10.7% from a year earlier, settling at $115,751 in October. In September 2011, average mortgage size on newly sold homes saw a 17.6% rise year-over-year from a year earlier. The overall percentage of sale price that was being financed sank 15.5 percentage points year-over-year to 63.9% in October 2011. This came after a 12.2 percentage point lift in September from a year earlier.

As a percentage of new home sales, attached unit sales have grown from last year while single-family home sales have dropped. The share of new home sales belonging to attached units grew from 7.0% of sales in October 2010 to 16.8% of sales in October 2011. Meanwhile, single-family home sales as a percentage of all new home sales slid to 83.2% of sales from 93.0% of sales.

There was a 5.5% rise year-over-year in the average unit size of newly sold homes to 1,525 square feet in October 2011. A rise was also seen in September 2011 when the average size of new homes sold increased 7.2% to 1,699 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales fell in October from a year earlier, but remained a drag on the market. Out of all existing home sales, foreclosures combined with REO sales made up 48.8% of sales, below 75.7% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures fell to 31.5% in October from 48.3% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales declined to 17.2% from 27.4% a year earlier.

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