The Wilmington, NC market saw a rise in new home sales in July year-over-year, and with a more robust boost than June 2011, there are signs the market may be strengthening. Sales rose 28.0% from a year earlier to 119, relative to a 3.8% rise last month from the year earlier.

In the 12 months ending July 2011, there were 1,267 new home sales, up from an annualized 1,241 in June.

As a percentage of overall housing sales, new home sales made up 19.4%. This is better than 14.9% of sales a year earlier. Following a year-over-year decline last month, sales of new and existing homes also dipped year-over-year in July.

In July, the average price of newly sold homes grew 12.9% year-over-year to $242,680 per unit. This gain is higher than the 10.0% surge last month year-over-year.

Average mortgage size on new homes declined year-over-year in contrast to new home prices. Average mortgage size fell by 1.1% from a year earlier, settling at $180,737 in July. In June 2011, average mortgage size on newly sold homes saw a 35.5% bump from a year earlier. The overall percentage of sale price that was being financed fell 10.6 percentage points year-over-year to 74.5% in July 2011. In June 2011, there was a 17.2 percentage point lift 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. The share of new home sales belonging to single-family homes climbed from 82.8% in July 2010 to 86.6% of sales in July 2011. At the same time, the share of new home sales belonging to attached units declined to 13.4% of sales from 17.2% of sales.

For all new homes sold, the average unit size slipped 7.2% year-over-year to 1,969 square feet in July 2011. Last month, the average size of new homes sold went from 1,722 square feet a year earlier to 1,739 square feet.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales declined in July from a year earlier, but stayed a drag on the market. Out of all existing home sales, foreclosures combined with REO sales represented 28.8% of sales, below 45.7% of sales a year earlier. From a year earlier, foreclosures declined to 19.9% of existing home sales in July after a figure of 29.2% of sales in July 2010 while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales fell to 8.9% of sales from 16.4% of sales a year earlier.

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