In the Wilmington, NC market in August, sales of new homes jumped year-over-year, and there were signals that the market may be gaining momentum as the percentage rise proved better than July 2011. New home sales saw a 41.3% rise from a year earlier to 130 after sales climbed 30.1% in July from the year earlier.

In the 12 months ending August 2011, there were 1,304 new home sales, up from an annualized 1,266 in July.

Of 670 total sales, 130 were of new homes. This is better than 13.5% of sales a year earlier. Following a period of little movement in July from a year earlier, sales of new and existing homes fell year-over-year in August.

In August, the average price of newly sold homes gained year-over-year to $250,277 per unit, a 17.0% gain. This surge is an improvement over the 12.2% hike in July year-over-year.

Along with new home prices, there was an increase year-over-year in the average mortgage size on newly sold homes. The average mortgage size rose to $219,024 in August, marking a 24.6% rise compared with a year earlier. Average mortgage size slipped 1.1% in July 2011 from a year earlier. For new home sales, the percentage of the sale price that was being financed rose 5.3 percentage points year-over-year to 87.5% in August 2011. In July 2011, there was a 10.1 percentage point decline in July from a year earlier.

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 rose from 89.1% of new sales in August 2010 to 93.8% of sales in August 2011. Meanwhile, attached units as a percentage of all new home sales slid to 6.2% of sales from 10.9% of sales.

For all new homes sold, the average unit size grew 12.2% year-over-year to 2,152 square feet in August 2011. In July, the average size of new homes sold went from 2,122 square feet a year earlier to 1,969 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales stayed a drag on the market. Together, foreclosures plus REO sales accounted for 36.3% of existing home sales. They made up 41.8% of sales in August 2010. The percentage of existing home sales belonging to foreclosures went from 26.0% in August 2010 to 26.3% of sales in August 2011 and REO sales dipped to 10.0% of existing sales from 15.8% of sales a year earlier.

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