Alabama Home Sales Rise 2 Percent
The Alabama Center for Real Estate reports 2011 home sales rise for first time since 2005:Year-end residential sales figures are in and it's now official, Alabama home sales in 2011 experienced growth of two percent from the prior year.
Provided quickly before the proverbial "so what", the encouraging news is that the 2011 results snap a 5-year string of year-over-year declines in sales growth for Alabama's residential real estate market.
Alabama home sales also outperformed the greater US market that registered sales growth of 1.7 percent in 2011 as reported by the National Association of REALTORS (NAR).
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said these are the early signs of what may be a sustained recovery. "The pattern of home sales in recent months demostrates a market in recovery", he said. "Record low mortgage interest rates, job growth and bargain home prices are giving more consumers the confidence they need to enter the market."
The 2011 sales results were also the first annual sales data that were not skewed by artificial federal stimulus as the most recent home buyer tax-incentive expired on June 30, 2010, which bolstered sales in the comparative years of 2009 and 2010.
Baldwin County led Alabama's midsize market peer group in 2011 sales growth of 18 percent from last year with Lee County (up 17%) a very close runner up while Cherokee County (up 25%) and Selma (8%) led the rural markets. Post-disaster sales surged in Tuscaloosa (12%) and this market comfortably captured the sales title for the state's metro markets with Mobile County (3%) in 2nd place.
Local Results: 14 out of the 25 local reporting associations (56%) reflect sales gains from the prior year. In 2011, sales in mid-size markets (up 6.4%) have outperformed both metro markets (up .01%) and rural areas (down .07%). Go here for detailed local figures.
Encouraging news from the Gulf Coast was the order of the day in 2011. Baldwin County condo sales in 2011 increased by 18% when compared to 2010.
As the Alabama real estate market transitions into 2012, statistical volatility is still anticipated. However, the volatility of data may begin to temper for the first time in several years, as there will be no home buying tax-incentives in play in either year (2011 or 2012) that in the recent past has skewed comparative annual figures.
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