February Homes Sales Up, Pending Sales Down from 2013

To say that the metro Albuquerque market for single family detached homes was flat in February as compared to January is tempting. February sales were, after all, a slight 2% above January, 550 homes versus 529 homes.
Giving into the temptation forgets that January has 31 days and February has 28. A bit of calculator punching tells us that during February, homes sold at the rate of 19.6/day. The January per day sales rate was 17.4, which makes the February performance a 12.6% increase from January.
However, February flab comes with the comparison to February 2013 when sales of 542 homes closed. Our February just past with its 550 units closed showed a slight 1.5% improvement from 2013.
February pending sales followed the pattern. The February pending figure was 24 units more than January, an entirely modest 3.1% increase. During February 28.3 sales began to pend each day. In January it was 24.8 per day.
Comparing to February 2013, pending sales did better than during January when pending sales dropped 20.6% the year ago month. February 2014 pending sales were down “only” 13% from February 2013. It is difficult to see how the number of closed sales can continue to grow while pending sales decline.
February price were flat. The median price was $169,000, up just a whisker (well under one percent) from both January and February 2013. The average price, $198,483, a 2.5% drop from both January and February 2013. No million dollar-plus homes sold during February. There were three such sales a year ago.
During February the time to sale a house got longer. The 83 average time on the market for a closed sale was 83 days, up nine percent from January 2014 and February 2013.
The Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors released the February sales figures today.