Buyers wrote contracts on only 3,883 homes in the Denver area in May, a 41.3 percent drop from April, when consumers scrambled to take advantage of the federal home buying tax credits that required a house to be placed under contract by April 30. In April, a record 6,616 homes were placed under contract, while last month marked the worst May since 2004 when 3,529 homes were placed under contract, shows a report released today by independent broker Gary Bauer, based on Metrolist data.

Under contacts were also down 27.3 percent from May 2009, when 5,343 homes were placed under contract.

“They were record drops,” Bauer said. “They were the largest percentage drops from 1990 going forward for any month, both for the consecutive months and year-over-year comparisons.”

Sales fell with tax credits

Bauer and other experts agree that the drop was because the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers and $6,500 for qualified existing owners expired at the end of April and require that the homes close by the end of June.

“April was such a frenzy; the numbers were inflated by the tax credits,” Bauer said. “Realtors were working up to midnight on April 30 to get homes placed under contract.Buyers are making multiple offers on homes and sellers were dealing with multiple offers.”

Still, Bauer believes the tax credits were worth it.

“I think we did steal some future sales,” Bauer said. “But in my opinion, it was a worthwhile program. And it has ended while we are coming into the prime selling seasons of the year – June, July and August. I think we are going to have a good prime season, but not a great prime season.”

Deja vu all over again

Peter Niederman, CEO of the Kentwood Co., wasn’t surprised that under contracts fell so precipitously when the tax-credit deadline passed.

“I think I mentioned to you in 2009, when it looked the tax credits were going to expire in November, that November was the only month last year that reported higher sales on a year-over-year basis from 2008,” Niederman said. “In my opinion, that is what happened in April. You had this huge pent-up surge in April, so under contracts were anticipated to fall in May.”

He noted that at Kentwood, the number of showings dropped in May from April, but not as much as the under contracts dropped.

Niederman, in a letter in his upcoming Gallery, a glossy magazine that highlights expensive listings by brokers at Kentwood and Kentwood City Properties, quotes Lawrence Yun, the economist for the National Association of Realtors.

Tax stimulus worked

“The second round of surging sales from the tax credit extension looks as strong as the original tax credit,” according to Yun. “Evidently, the tax stimulus, combined with the improved consumer confidence and low mortgage interest rates, are contributing to surging sales. The housing market now appears to be in a good position to return to sustainable levels even without government stimulus, provided the economy continues to add jobs.”

Niederman said he couldn’t agree with Yun more. And he is not dismayed that the market nose-dived in May, as far as under contracts.

“One month doesn’t make a trend,” Niederman said. Indeed, there were 24,510 homes placed under contract in the first five months of the year, a 4.9 percent increase from the 23,366 during the same period in 2009.

“If you want to look at where the trend is, you need to look at the year-over-year numbers,” Niederman said. “I am encouraged that we are about 5 percent ahead of where we were last year. When you look at the first five months of this year compared with the first five months of last year, we are still ahead of the game.”

Economist Patty Silverstein said that everyone knew that the tax credits would have an impact on home sales activity, but until today’s report, no one knew how big of an impact the market would experience.

“Obviously, from the under contract values, we lost some of the momentum we had in the market,” Silverstein said. “The market was sort of front-loaded. But we are now moving into the prime home sales season, and so we will know in the coming months how much we are moving into a steadier, sustainable pace.”

In fact, she said what is happening in the housing economy is not much different than what is happening in the overall economy.”If you are focusing on a little broader measure, and not just on the residential market, this whole economic recovery is going to see some fits and starts. The recovery, whether you are talking about the entire economy, or the residential market, is not going to be healed in just one year..”

Silverstein said she is more concerned about the 27 percent drop from May 2009 than the 41 percent drop from April. “That does kind of concern me,” Silverstein said. Indeed, May 2009 was not a stellar one for sales activity,with under contracts down almost 16 percent from May 2008. While this was the worst May in six years, there were other dynamics fueling the market in 2004, Silverstein said.  “Keep in mind 2004 was when those outrageous mortgage products started to come on the scene,” Silverstein said, fueling sales until the summer of 2008, when the house of mortgage cards collapsed the entire industry.

Realtors are people, too

Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Colorado, said the drop off in under contracts last month were “very predictable,” and the obvious culprit was the end of the tax credits.

But there also was a human factor in play that many people will overlook, he said

“People have to realize that real estate agents are people, too,” Mygatt said. “They have to manage their time like anyone else. They were extremely busy showing properties in April, evidenced by the fact that was the best April on record for under contracts. In May, the agents’ job was to get those contracts they wrote in April closed. So they were working with existing clients to get those homes closed before the June 30 deadline and did not have as much time to spend on drumming up new business. I think the June numbers are going to be very important. I think we may see a little bounce back in showings and under contracts in June.”

Mygatt was pleased to see the number of unsold homes on the market last month to rise 6.2 percent to 22,016 from 20,734 in May 2009, and increase by 2.1 percent from the 21,565 homes in April

Pragmatically, however, sellers would have been better served to have their homes on the market earlier, to take advantage of the tax credits.

“Yes, they should have, and that was what agents were telling them,” Mygatt said. “We did not have enough inventory in April, which was frustrating for buyers. But a lot of sellers just couldn’t get organized in time. If you aren’t involved in selling and buying homes all of the time, you don’t realize that it can easily take one or two months to get a home prepared to sales. You have to replace the carpets and paint it and clean up the clutter.”

Still, with the exception of May 2009, the current unsold inventory is the lowest May since 2002, when only 14,173 homes were on the market.

“That shows we do not have an excessive inventory of homes on the market,” Mygatt said. “We can easily absorb the extra homes on the market, without creating an imbalance between supply and demand and hurting pricing. We’re heading towards a more normalized market.”

Most metrics smoking

David Simonson, of RE/MAX Professionals, said the tax credit drove sales in the lower-priced part of the market. “It stimulated a lot of people looking in the $100,000 to $200,000 range into the low $300,000 range,” Simonson said. “Realistically, we are looking at a little wave – a little up, a little down. If you look at everything but the the under contracts, everything else was great.”

For example, the average price of a single-family home that closed last month was $273,285, about 4 percent higher than the $262,066 in May 2009, and the median price of a single-family home rose 4.5 percent to $230,000 from $220,000.

And the 4,365 home closings represented a 20.3 percent increase from the3,628 closings in May 2009 and a 4.2 percent increase from the 4,188 in April.

Also, the 2.1 percent increase in the supply of unsold homes in May from April, bodes well for the market, he said.

“I’m surprised in a good way,” Simonson said.

Market on upswing?

Jack O’Connor, a principal of RE/MAX Professionals, said that May marked the third consecutive month of continuing year-over-year increases in monthly sales. “Historically, three straight months of increased sold-data would signal a market on the upswing,” O’Connor said. “Since the tax credit artificially increased sales in April, watching this data over the next three months will confirm whether Denver is truly on the rebound, or if we are still bouncing along the bottom of the market.”

Meanwhile,  although job growth during the first half of the year failed to live up to expectations, Denver is now being widely cited as a city that will out-perform the national market in job growth and job stability for the next several years, O’Connor said.

Jobs key

“When there is a pool of jobs, people move to take advantage, which lowers inventory and drives prices up,” O’Connor said. “In this particular market, those buyers would have the additional advantage of buying at historically low conforming rates, at a time when average prices look comparatively favorable. That prompts properties to move and for appreciation to occur.”

O’Connor, who analyzed the market using a different methodology than Bauer used, found that there were 4,237 closed sales in the eight-county area in May, 10.4 percent higher than the 3,782 in May 2009.  O’Connor’s research also found that there is a 5.1-month supply of homes on the market priced below $500,000.  At current absorption rates, that would be considered a seller’s market, he said. By contrast, there is currently about a 30-month supply of unsold homes priced at more than $750,000, O’Connor said.

“The upper end phenomenon hasn’t been seen in 50 years,” O’Connor said. “It creates an unusual opportunity for a buyer that has been waiting to move up from a lower price range, to be able to get a sale at close-to full price on the seller side, and to pick-and-choose on the purchase side at very favorable interest rates.”

Year	Under Contract	Closed	Single-family Average Price
2010	3,883	4,365	$273,285
2009	5,343	3,628	$262,066
2008	6,338	4,664	$228,500
2007	6,353	5,081	$318,904
2006	6,459	5,010	$315,257
2005	6,735	5,013	$305,730
2004	3,529	5,241	$294,040
2003	2,773	3,914	$275,879
2002	3,247	5,140	$268,952

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Denver was not on the list of 20 MSAs that NAR released data on median prices and sales in March, but at the request of InsideRealEstateNews.com, the trade organization supplied it with otherwise “unpublished” data on the Denver market.

The data shows that only San Diego, with a 20.4 percent increase in price, and St. Louis, at 19.8 percent, bested Denver.

“There may be some other unpublished data that would be in conflict,” with Denver being ranked No. 3, said Walter Molony, a spokesman for the NAR. “But Denver is one of the top ones.”

Positive national spotlight

“I think this is really good news,” said Gary Bauer, an independent broker, who tracks local real estate data based on Metrolist figures. His latest report showed a 12.2 percent increase in the median price in march 2009 to 2010.

“Clearly, what we have previously reported to you from Metrolist is consistent with what NAR is saying, although the numbers are slightly different possibly because of different way of calculating them or slightly different geographic areas being included,” Bauer said. “But I think that this is very positive, especially in light of the recent Forbes.com article,” which listed Denver as the second worst housing market, based on what it thought it was a rising inventory numbers based on Zillow.com, which local Realtors discredited.

“What I also think is very positive is that when you look at the homes that are under contract, but have not closed,” Bauer said. “We are going to have a very good April and a very good May for closings. And even when the tax credits go away at the end of this month, my gut tells me we are still going to hang in there.”

Mix, not appreciation, driving stats

The main reason that the median prices are up is because more sales are occurring at higher price points than in the spring of 2009, said Jeff Thredgold, the economist for Vectra Bank in Colorado.

“I would have to say that the Denver and Colorado markets are much more stable than they had been,” Thredgold said. “If you look at how things were a year ago, or 18 months ago, people did not know what tomorrow held. Now, the Colorado economy is much more stable, the U.S. economy is more stable and stronger, the stock market is doing much better, and mortgage rates still remain at very attractive levels. ”

Still, it would be a mistake to think the NAR numbers are showing home appreciation.

“This is not to say that the average home has gone up 14 percent,” Thredgold said. “They have been pretty much sideways. What we are seeing is that people are buying more homes in the $300,000 to $450,000 range than we were seeing, which is driving up the overall prices.”

As far as percentage changes in sales, the Denver-area market was near the bottom of the MSAs tracked by NAR.. The Denver-area sales rate rose by 9.2 percent, a far cry from the 45.6 percent in Portland, the No. 1 market by the sales metric. Portland’s home prices, however, remained down from a year earlier.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Thredgold said. “Some of these other market were really crushed. People are now just starting to buy again, after that big run up in prices and the equally huge downturn. Denver never went through those big increases and big drops.”

Market heading for first real appreciation in 10 years

Jack O’Connor, an owner of RE.MAX Professionals, agrees.

“We have neither had the big appreciation, nor have we had the big declines,” O’Connor said. “What we are seeing is a solid market. Our inventory is not rising dramatically like it does in a typical spring, and ales are up. Those are all good things. while you don’t want to take a snapshot of one month and say this is the trend, I think if this continues for three months or so, you could have evidence that we are going to see the first real appreciation of homes prices in the Denver area for the first time in 10 years. I think we are going to see home appreciation from the very low-end all the way up to the $500,000 to $600,000 price range.”

End of tax credits could hurt

Economist Patty Silverstein, principal of Development Research Partners, said that not only are more expensive homes starting to sell in the Denver area, but demand is driving up prices at the lowest end, driving up the overall numbers.

“We still have more foreclosures entering the market than we would like, but our foreclosure problems started earlier than in most markets, so we are likely to come out of it faster than most markets,” Silverstein said.

However, she said that she is concerned that while the $8,000 tax credits for first-time home buyers, and the $6,500 tax credits for some existing home owners, could be boosting today’s market, at the expense of future sales

“you have to wonder how much of the sales activity here and all across the country are because of the tax credits,” Silverstein said. “I don’t know if this is a sustainable situation. I guess they are good as far as they go, but would prefer sales market based on fundamentals that could be sustained.”

MSA	Median Price 2009	Median Price 2010	YOY % Price Change	YOY % Sales Change
Atlanta	$116,300	$113,600	-2.3%	7.0%
Baltimore	$245,500	$236,800	-3.5%	18.9%
Boston	$289,500	$329,800	13.9%	25.9%
Cincinnati	$113,200	$124,100	9.6%	16.0%
Dallas	$138,100	$144,600	4.7%	12.6%
DENVER	$203,000	$238,200	14.4%	9.2%
Houston	$145,500	$154,300	6.0%	11.0%
Indianapolis	$107,500	$117,500	9.3%	11.0%
Kansas City	$131,600	$137,400	4.4%	11.5%
Miami/Ft. Lauderdale	$210,200	$218,200	3.8%	12.9%
Minneapolis	$154,125	$165,000	7.1%	6.5%
New Orleans	$156,300	$154,100	-1.4%	-2.3%
New York	$367,400	$379,900	3.4%	24.5%
Philadelphia	$209,700	$209,300	-0.2%	19.6%
Phoenix	$127,500	$144,500	13.3%	10.1%
Pittsburgh	$108,700	$122,900	13.1%	26.3%
Portland	$245,700	$238,700	-2.8%	45.6%
San Antonio	$145,400	$143,700	-1.2%	29.7%
San Diego	$326,800	$393,600	20.4%	4.0%
St. Louis	$107,900	$129,300	19.8%	25.6%
Washington, D.C.	$287,300	$298,900	4.0%	12.5%

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Below is the article posted on Monday by Francesca Levy. She even mentions me in the piece, although I would not describe myself as a “critic.” Rather, I am messenger giving others a forum to voice their opinions. In this case, however, it was difficult finding someone supporting the conclusions of the first article.

Forbes article

“An April 5 article that ranked the Denver metro area’s real estate market as the nation’s second worst-selling elicited objection from the city’s real estate community. Some Realtors and real estate bloggers disagreed with the housing inventory numbers, provided by Zillow.com, that contributed to the rankings.

Many felt that Zillow’s numbers, which showed a 27% year-over-year increase in homes for sale on the site and an inventory of over 42,000 unsold properties, were inflated, because the site hosts multiple same-property listings, and transactions may not be recorded as quickly as they occur. This means properties could be on Zillow, but no longer on the market.

Zillow’s metric measured inventory from January 2009 to January 2010, the latest available when the article ran. Metrolist, a firm that collects and analyzes Colorado real estate data, shows a March 2010 inventory of 20,073.

Zillow.com confirmed that double counting was possible. Zillow spokeswoman Katie Curnutte says that Zillow’s numbers represent the homes for sale on the site, and that data from January will differ from any count that’s more current. She added that the company regularly takes on new partners who provide the site with listings, skewing year-over-year comparisons.

“It can be difficult to derive any assumptions about market conditions from the year-over-year numbers,” she says.

Zillow provided Forbes.com with year-over-year homes-for-sale numbers for each of the metropolitan statistical areas examined; each metro was scored by the same measures. Since Zillow has acknowledged that these numbers may have been artificially increased, Forbes.com has decided to limit the use of year-over-year homes-for-sale statistics from the data provider.

“Though Zillow’s numbers allowed us to compare the number of homes for sale across the country’s metros,” says Lucy Maher, executive editor, Forbes. “We recognize that these numbers may not have given us an accurate look at local inventories.”

In addition to the number of homes for sale on Zillow.com, used to measure inventory, the story looked at home price data from the National Association of Realtors; and sales rates from Moody’s Economy.com. The article looked at each of the country’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas with a population of more than one million.

Metrolist’s data looked at the housing market two months later. What’s more, it may not account for all foreclosures and new home sales. Still, Metrolist spokeswoman Melissa Olson says that those differences alone can’t explain why Zillow reported over twice as many homes for sale than Metrolist.

“In the Denver market, new home sales and foreclosure sales are not significant enough to make a doubling effect,” she says.

Critics including John Rebchook, who writes about local real estate in his blog InsideRealEstateNews.com, Krystal Kraft, a local Realtor who first raised her objections to the story via Twitter, and Denver Mayor John W. Hickenlooper also voiced their objections to Zillow’s data.

“It was hard for me to imagine we could have gotten into such a desperate environment without anybody noticing, and without me hearing about it,” says Hickenlooper. “When I first read the story I talked to brokers who said a year ago we had a six-month supply of homes and now we have a five-month supply, so we’re actually doing better.”

The National Association of Homebuilders, a lobbying group, reports that because of a lack of overbuilding in Denver during the housing boom, signs that home prices are normalizing and foreclosures falling below the national average, they anticipate that, on the whole, Denver real estate will steadily emerge from the recession.

“We don’t expect the Denver market to be either best or worst, but rather to be pretty middle of the pack, improving with a broad swath of United States housing markets,” wrote Donna Reichle, NAHB spokeswoman, in an e-mail. “Our forecast for the Denver housing market is for recovery continuing this year from the early 2009 bottom and gaining momentum through 2010 and beyond.”

Local response to article.

“I thought it was interesting,” Hickenlooper said Tuesday afternoon. “They didn’t go as far as describing the health of the Denver housing market as we might have liked or desired. But they did explain, and they were very open about, what the problem was.  I would have liked to have heard some more positive descriptions of our real estate market. But I have no complaints.”

Hickenlooper said it is difficult to measure if the first article caused any damage to the market.

“Anecdotally, you do hear about transactions that deals that didn’t close that might otherwise not have closed because of the article,” he said. By the same token, Hickenlooper said, it is difficult to know whether the second article will erase doubt from prospective buyers who were influenced by the first one. “The thing now is to put it to bed in an official way and put it behind us,” Hickenlooper said.

Peter Niederman, an owner of the Kentwood Cos., said he was pleased with the second article, ‘but I was hoping that she would go into detail about how great the Denver market is. The main thing that came out from her second article is that she realized that Zillow might double-count information and isn’t the best source of information on the local housing market. She admits it and was quick to do it, which is commendable.”

Niederman, however, said he wished she had pointed to statistics that showed the improving market. “We probably started the year with eight months of inventory, and now we’re at about five months,” Niederman said. “That is a very good place to be. Those are good numbers. I like the trend.”

Like Hickenlooper, Niederman said it is hard to quantify the impact of the first one, and the second article, for that matter. “You do hear rumblings that some deals might not have happened, or people have had second thoughts, of course,” Niederman said. ‘”If a real estate broker who may be working with a buyer who read the article, can now show him the second article, which provides some ammunition, or cannon fodder, to say this may be the best time to buy.”

Word getting out

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said he wants to get the word out about the second article.

“I think it is great,” Clark said. “We plan to give it wide distribution.”

He said that he was disappointed and surprised by the first article, because he had always held Forbes in high regard. “Whenever I was interviewed by Forbes in the past, it was always old-school, with the reporters calling me back to check their facts,” Clark said. “Of course, that was Forbes, the magazine, and not Forbes.com. But I would think that the same standards would apply.”

Clark said in this fast-paced information world, it may be tempting to use information from any source, without checking  its accuracy first.

“We have always been kind of suspect of Zillow, which is why we don’t use their information,” Clark said. Many Denver-area Realtors have said since the first Forbes.com article came out, that they frequently find that homes they have listed on Zillow remain there after they have been sold, giving credence to the notion that Zillow over-counts unsold homes on the market.

David Simonson, a broker with RE/MAX Professionals, said he is “excited” about the second article.  He said he has found Zillow to be “problematic” for years, and thinks using MLS statistics from Metrolist paints a much better picture of the market than Zillow does.  He said about two years ago, a  buyer almost backed out of buying a $600,000 house that had been appraised twice, because Zillow estimated its value at only $483,000.  Also, he said he has had problems with other brokers pretending on Zillow that they were listing homes in which he was representing the owners.

Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, none of the buyers or sellers Simonson was dealing with were troubled by the first article. He said his clients shopping for expensive homes do their own extensive due diligence, while those at the lower-end find what a national publication says irrelevant.  ”I did get a few phone calls from people who were neither selling nor buying, who wanted to know how the MLS could get it so wrong,” Simonson said. “These are the people who glance at the headlines before rushing to work.  I explained to them that they got the “wrong one, wrong,” Simonson said. “I told them that Zillow is very user-friendly, but is not a good real estate-evaluation tool.  I told them the MLS is good data, with no leeway or emotion involved. It factually tells you what 20,000 Realtors in the Denver area are doing.”

Unintended benefit of first article

Larry McGee, principal of the Berkshire Group, said that the second article will not immediately reverse any damage done by the first one, such as people being spooked from buying homes or suffering buyer’s remorse.

“I do think the first article was bad,” McGee said. “I do appreciate the fact, personally, they reconciled the fact that they did have a problem. I do think they threw Zillow under the bus. I think we all know now that Zillow’s approach to listing active inventory is not very good for statistical analysis. They don’t vett the information, they don’t purge it, they get information from different sources, which  constantly changes. Zillow does serve a purpose. We probably list all of our active listings there. The problem is it is very hard for the typical broker to change the status once the home has been sold, so it languishes there for months.”

Now that Forbes.com has indicated it will not use Zillow’s year-over-year data for inventory comparisons, it should save other cities in the country suffering the problems faced in Denver, he said. “Since it looks like Forbes learned from the mistake it made in Denver, other cities probably won’t have to go through what we did,” McGee said.

But even the first article had an unintended positive consequence, McGee said.

“I think the best thing that came out of this is that a widely disparate group of people came together with no other interest than to make things right, came together,” McGee said. “Without any leadership, a sort of grassroots movement started and I was happy to have something to do with it. There is something extraordinary positive about that. That may even be more important than the article.

(To see what all of the fuss is about, please visit these blogs: Forbes writing another article on Denver,  Hick not buying Forbes’ take on Denver housing market, Forbes article criticized)

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Existing-home sales nationwide – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – fell 16.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 5.45 million units in December from 6.54 million in November, but remain 15.0 percent above the 4.74 million-unit level in December 2008, the National Association of Realtors reports today.

After a rising surge from September through November, existing-home sales fell as expected in December after first-time buyers rushed to complete sales before the original November deadline for the tax credit. However, prices rose from December 2008 and annual sales improved in 2009, according to the NAR.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – fell 16.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 5.45 million units in December from 6.54 million in November, but remain 15.0 percent above the 4.74 million-unit level in December 2008.

For all of 2009 there were 5,156,000 existing-home sales, which was 4.9 percent higher than the 4,913,000 transactions recorded in 2008; it was the first annual sales gain since 2005.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there were no surprises in the data.

“It’s significant that home sales remain above year-ago levels, but the market is going through a period of swings driven by the tax credit,” he said. “We’ll likely have another surge in the spring as home buyers take advantage of the extended and expanded tax credit. By early summer the overall market should benefit from more balanced inventory, and sales are on track to rise again in 2010. However, the job market remains a concern and could dampen the housing recovery – job creation is key to a continued recovery in the second half of the year.” (Editors Note: I said the same thing on a Channel 9 report aired on Saturday. For more on that report, please visit this link. )

An NAR practitioner survey shows first-time buyers purchased 43 percent of homes in December, down from 51 percent in November. Repeat buyers rose to 42 percent of transactions in December from 37 percent in November; the remaining sales were to investors.

The national median existing-home price3 for all housing types was $178,300 in December, which is 1.5 percent higher than December 2008. “The median price rose because of an increased number of mid- to upper-priced homes in the sales mix,” Yun said. It was the first year-over-year gain in median price since August 2007.

NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Arizona, said market conditions are challenging in some areas. “There’s a shortage of lower priced homes for sale in much of the country, resulting in multiple bids in some areas,” she said.

“Raw unsold inventory has been trending down. As the market heats up again this spring, buyers may need to be prepared to move quickly on a particular home – the best advice is to begin working with a Realtor now to be able to use the tax credit and benefit from the increased buying power in the current market,” Golder said.

Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 6.6 percent to 3.29 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.2-month supply4 at the current sales pace, up from a 6.5-month supply in November. Raw unsold inventory is 11.1 percent below a year ago, is at the lowest level since March 2006, and is 28.2 percent below the record of 4.58 million in July 2008.

Distressed homes, which accounted for 32 percent of sales last month, continue to downwardly distort the median price because they generally sell at a discount relative to traditional homes in the same area. For all of 2009, the median price was $173,500, down 12.4 percent from $198,100 in 2008; distressed homes accounted for 36 percent of total sales last year.

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage rose to 4.93 percent in December from 4.88 percent in November; the rate was 5.29 percent in December 2008.

Single-family home sales fell 16.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million in December from a pace of 5.76 million in November, but are 12.7 percent above the 4.25 million level in December 2008. For all of 2009, single-family sales rose 5.0 percent to 4,566,000.

The median existing single-family home price was $177,500 in December, which is 1.4 percent above a year ago. For all last year, the single-family median was $173,200, down 11.9 percent from 2008.

Existing condominium and co-op sales fell 15.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 660,000 in December from 780,000 in November, but are 34.7 percent higher than the 490,000-unit pace a year ago. For all of 2009, condo sales rose 4.8 percent to 590,000 units.

The median existing condo price5 was $183,700 in December, up 1.0 percent from December 2008. For all of last year, the median condo price was $176,100, which is 16.1 percent below 2008.

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast dropped 19.5 percent to an annual level of 910,000 in December but are 21.3 percent above a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $241,700, up 3.2 percent from December 2008.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest fell 25.8 percent in December to a level of 1.15 million but are 8.5 percent higher than December 2008. The median price in the Midwest was $143,200, which is 1.8 percent above a year ago.

In the South, existing-home sales dropped 16.3 percent to an annual pace of 2.01 million in December but are 15.5 percent above December 2008. The median price in the South was $152,000, down 1.0 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the West declined 4.8 percent to an annual rate of 1.38 million in December but are 15.0 percent higher than a year ago. The median price in the West was $236,000, up 2.7 percent from December 2008.

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The median, or middle, price of a home jumped to $224.800 last month from $197,800 in December 2008. The percentage increase was the largest of at least other metropolitan statistical areas tracked by the NAR. Unlike the S&P/Case-Shiller report that will be released on Tuesday, the NAR report does not include only major markets. It also includes markets such as Pittsburgh and San Antonio, for example.

Sales volume, however, dropped by 10.2 percent in the Denver area.  Only Indianapolis, with a 13.1 percent decline, showed a bigger percentage drop, according to the data released by NAR.

Denver was not on the list, but the information it compiles for the Denver MSA was released to InsideRealEstateNews.com.

“I can give you unpublished data on Denver,” said NAR spokesman Walter Molony. He said the NAR publicly released month-over-month data on various cities depending on the sample size of the MSA and how comfortable NAR felt with the data. The NAR also noted that their data may show different results than local data because of geographic areas and housing types included. An earlier report by independent broker Gary Bauer, based on Metrolist data, showed a slightly smaller percentage increase in the median price of a single-family home sold. Bauer’s report showed the median price of a single-family home closed in December at $221,000, up 13 percent from December 2008.

Molony also cautioned about reading too much into monthly data for any metropolitan area.

“Month-to-month data can be quite volatile,” Molony said. “We prefer quarterly data. We will be releasing quarterly data on Feb. 11. That will be more in-depth and you should find that more valuable.”

When I told Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Colorado, about the data, he noted that is a bit of a higher December vs. December 2008 gain, based on local Metrolist figures.

He said the increase last month was due to the mix of homes being sold. For most of 2009, so many distressed properties were being sold that they were driving down the overall average and median prices, he said.

“It is interesting,” Mygatt said about the NAR data. “We know in the last four months we have been seeing some increases in the average price of a sold homes.”

But he said that is a trend that may not last.

“If  you look at the big picture in Denver, we know that banks are sitting on a record number of homes that are not being listed on the market and are not currently being sold,” Mygatt said. “That has resulted in a decreasing inventory and when demand came on strong, we saw prices at the lower-end move up, along with some movement at the upper end.  What I really fear is when and how this  ”shadow market” of unsold homes held by the banks are delivered to the market. If they let them out one at a time, by dribs and drabs, it won’t have much of an impact. But if all of a sudden they drop thousands of homes on the market, we are going to be in trouble. That will cause a big drop in prices.”

Source: National Association of Realtors

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The report says that regional business confidence levels are increasing and the correction in housing may end – or at least stabilize.

Clark noted that the “annual declines in a majority of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices have reached bottom, and the indices for Denver are close to a positive annual return. (For my earlier blog on the most recent Case-Shiller report go to this link.)

“Additionally, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield metropolitan statistical area was among 30 areas that reported an increase in median home price between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009. The increase was also the first reported for Metro Denver in two years and contrasted with an 11.2 percent over-the-year decline in the nationwide median,” the report notes.

Metro Denver home sales rose 2.9 percent between September and October. October home sales were 7.6 percent below sales from October 2008, but this over-the-year gap in sales was the smallest reported since December 2008, according to the report. (For more on the Denver-area housing market in October, go to my previous blog.)

“Put another way, the pace of Metro Denver home sales is slowly strengthening and should reach a point early next year where monthly sales exceed those reported in 2009,” Clark said.

Slow improvements in home sales have also helped stabilize home prices in the Denver area. Denver. The October average sales price for single-family homes increased 4.6 percent over-the-year, and the average price for the first 10 months of the year moved within five percent of the average for the same months of 2008. The year-to-date average condominium price was down 7.1 percent in October, but condominium prices are also showing signs of gradual improvement.

Challenges certainly remain for housing markets, the report notes.

“The Mortgage Bankers Association’s most recent National Delinquency Survey shows roughly one in seven U.S. mortgages were past due or in foreclosure at the end of the third quarter, and overall delinquency rates continue to break records nationwide. In Colorado, closer to one in 10 home loans were delinquent or in foreclosure at the end of the third quarter. The state’s overall delinquency rate of 6.7 percent was the highest reported since at least 1990, Colorado still had the 10th-lowest rate in the nation.”

The report also notes that “unemployment has largely replaced subprime loans as the key driver of mortgage delinquency, although additional resets of adjustable rate loans are looming in 2010. Stronger trends in home sales and prices can only help with these challenges, though, and government programs including the now extended and expanded homebuyers’ tax credit should also help housing markets stabilize in the months ahead.”

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The 153 MSAs tracked by the NAR lost 11.2 percent overall, with the national median price of a single-family home falling to $177,900 from $200,400 a year earlier.

The Denver-Aurora area showed the biggest gain in the West. Only Yakima, Wash., where the median price rose by 2.7 percent, showed more appreciation in a  Western region.

The Denver-Aurora area saw the median price in the third-quarter rise to $229,100 from $225,100.

In Boulder, the median price fell 0.9 percent to $358,300 from $361,500 and in Colorado Springs, the median price fell by 6.2 percent to $195,100 from $207,900.

Nationwide,  123 of 153 metropolitan statistical areas reported lower median existing single-family home prices in the third quarter comparison with the third quarter of 2008, while 30 areas had price gains.

Meanwhile, Colorado did not fare as well for home sales, according to the NAR.

Third-quarter home sales in  Colorado were down 14.1 percent from the third-quarter of 2008, while overall sales increased 11.4 percent for the nation. These sales includes single-family homes and condos.

Nationwide, there were 5.3 million units sold, when adjusted seasonally, compared with 4.76 million a year earlier.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR, said the home buying tax credit is a significant factor for boosting sales.

“We can’t underestimate just how powerful a catalyst the first-time home buyer tax credit has been for the housing sector,” Yun said. “It’s given buyers the confidence they needed to get off the fence and take advantage of extremely affordable housing conditions. The buying conditions this year are the most favorable on record dating back to 1970, but the tax credit is allowing buyers to set aside any reservations about waiting for a better deal.”

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But Denver was bucked that downward trend last month.

The median price of a single-family home sold in September was $225,000, 4 percent higher than the $216,150 in September 2008,  according to an earlier report by independent broker Gary Bauer. And the median price of a condo sold in September in the Denver area was $145,000, 3.645 percent higher than the $139,900 in September 2008.

Nationally, distressed properties continue to downwardly distort the median price because they generally sell at a discount relative to traditional homes in the same area, according to NAR.

In Denver, move-up buyers are starting to return to the market, Bauer and other experts say. In addition, bidding wars are erupting for lower-end homes on a regular basis, which also drives up the overall prices.

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The NAR will release its annual consumer study, called the National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyer and Sellers, on Nov. 13.

A separate practitioner survey shows that distressed homes accounted for 29 percent of transactions in September.

NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth, said affordability conditions remain historically high.

“Potential first-time buyers can take heart in that affordability conditions this year are the highest on record dating back to 1970, but with the first-time buyer tax credit scheduled to expire at the end of next month, people could hold back from entering the market,” McMillan said.

“Our read is that housing overshot on the downside because homes are selling for less than replacement construction costs in much of the country, and the home price-to-income ratio has fallen below the historical average,” he continued.

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The tax credit, set to expire at the end of November, has driven much of the home sales gains in five of the past six months, according to the NAR

There were 5.57 million seasonally adjusted existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – compared with about 5.10 million August. Sales are  up 9.2 percent from September 2008.

Sales activity is at the highest level in more than two years, since it hit 5.73 million in July 2007.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said favorable conditions matched with a tax credit are boosting home sales.

“Much of the momentum is from people responding to the first-time buyer tax credit, which is freeing many sellers to make a trade and buy another home,” Yun said. “We are hopeful the tax credit will be extended and possibly expanded to more buyers, at least through the middle of next year, because the rising sales momentum needs to continue for a few additional quarters until we reach a point of a self-sustaining recovery.”

Even with the improvement, Yun said the market is underperforming.

“Despite spectacular gains in the stock market, principally from the financial sector recovery, most of the 75 million home owning families have more wealth tied to their homes,” Yun explained.” Home values could soon turn consistently positive and help the broad base of middle-class families, but we are not there yet.

“We’re getting early indications of price stabilization, but we need a steady supply of qualified buyers to meaningfully bring inventories down and return us to a period of normal, steady price growth and to fully remove consumer fears, which would then revive the broader economy. Without a firm foundation for middle-class wealth recovery, the post-recession economic growth likely will be one of the weakest in U.S. history.”

John Rebchook can be reached at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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