Here’s an interesting little fact that seems to fly in the face of a basic economic law – our average sales price is down, and yet our inventory is low and demand is high. Usually, low supply and high demand translates into increasing prices.
The reason for this is as follows – the low-end of the market dominated the sales at the end of ’09 and into January of 2010. It wasn’t that most houses sold for less. It was that the majority of homes sold were homes at the lower-end of the market.
Take a look at this chart – 55% of the houses sold in January sold for below $174,900.
Which brings the average sales price for January to $184,400, which is 3.2% drop from the whole of 2009, which experienced only a .6% drop from 2008.
Be sure to download the whole thing (3mb PDF) if you’re a fan of charts and graphs (and I’ve heard from those of you that are – “Where are the facts and figures, Cari?”).
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