Crain’s Detroit Business | Dan Duggan
In July, there were 6,452 residential sales, up 18.7 percent compared to 5,436 sales in July, 2008, according to data from the Farmington Hills-based MLS Realcomp II Ltd.
More than half of the sales — 3,275 — were foreclosures; upping the number of foreclosure sales in the region by 75 percent compared to July 2008.
For the month of July, there were 111 non-foreclosure sales in Detroit, a 64.5 percent drop year-over-year; 425 in Macomb for a 6.2 percent drop; 842 in Oakland for a 6 percent drop; and 817 in Wayne for an 18.5 percent drop.
The median price on all sales dropped 38.1 percent from $105,000 in July, 2008 to $65,000 in July, 2009.
One of several bright spots in the numbers was that the non-foreclosure, median sale price for homes in the city of Detroit grew by 100 percent from $11,000 in July, 2008 to $22,000 in July, 2009.
For all of Wayne County, the number increased as well from $96,950 in 2008 to $100,000 in 2009.
In areas like Midtown and the University District, there seems to be more interest in sales right now, said Austin Black II, a Realtor in the Birmingham office of Max Broock Realtors who specializes in Detroit sales.
And those properties seem to be selling at higher prices, he said.
“Last week, I put in an offer for a client on a home in Palmer Woods and there were multiple offers on the house,” he said. “I haven’t seen multiple offers in a while.”
Black also said that some of the homes purchased dirt cheap in foreclosure are now being fixed-up and sold at market rate, perhaps driving the increase.
Also considered a positive indicator, the amount of time required for homes to sell decreased in July.
A home spent an average of 103 days on the market as of July, compared to 118 days as of July 2008. The inventory of unsold homes also reduced to 48,831 marking the lowest inventory number since March, 2006.
Black, however, noted that there are less people listing their homes.
“It appears that a lot of people are guessing that they won’t get what they’re asking for their homes, so they’re just not listing them,” he said.
Crain’s Communications 2009
