If April showings are supposed to bring May closings, the metro area’s peak home-selling season is off to a slower-than-expected start.
“May was not a bad month, but I thought the season would be a little healthier at this point in time,” said Gary Bauer, an independent real-estate analyst who compiles a monthly housing report using statistics from Metro list.
Homebuyers closed on 5,081 properties in the metro area in May, up 15.5 percent from April and 1.4 percent from May 2006, according to the report, which was released Tuesday.
There were 29,110 unsold homes on the market in May, up 4.5 percent from April’s 27,858 homes. A year ago in May, there were 30,457 unsold homes on the market.
Condos sold at a median price of $155,000, up from $148,900 in April but down from the $160,000 fetched a year ago.
The median single-family home price was $251,155, up from $248,000 in April and on par with the $250,943 in May 2006.
“My gut feeling is that we are a little bit late this year,” Ron Thorne, a Realtor with the Ron Thorne Group in Bailey, said of this year’s prime homebuying season.
Home-selling activity typically jumps in May and strengthens across the summer before dropping sharply in September, when children return to school.
June is starting off busy in terms of showings, said Thorne, who adds that rising interest rates may be motivating some buyers to get in before their mortgage payments escalate too much.
Sellers appear to be getting more realistic in how they price their homes, with final sale prices at about 97 percent of the listing prices, Thorne said.
“The danger in overpricing is that you always end up with a lower price than if you had it priced it correctly from the get-go,” Thorne said. “It is a tough lesson to swallow for a lot of people.”
Even though pricing is improving, homes in the metro area are still taking three to four months to sell. The average is 102 days on the market, down from the 110 days required in April, Thorne said.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
