A pair of reports released Wednesday showed continued weakness in the housing market.
Home sales in the Denver metro area slowed during August, but prices remained stable, according to local statistics. Meanwhile, a national report showed that pending sales for July fell to their lowest level in nearly six years.
“Prices continue to stay stable, which is what I forecast for the entire year,” Gary Bauer, an independent real-estate analyst, said of the local report.
The number of homes sold in the Denver area in August was 5,010, up 0.6 percent from the previous month but down 0.3 percent from a year ago.
The median price of a single-family home increased to $257,500, a 1 percent increase compared with July and a 1.8 percent increase from a year ago.
Condos didn’t fare as well. The median price of a condo was $152,500 in August, down 3.5 percent from July and 4.7 percent from last year.
“First-time homebuyers are starting to get squeezed a little bit because of tighter lending practices, and sellers really need to price the home to the market, not just what they think,” Bauer said.
Separately, national data showed that pending sales of existing homes fell in July to their lowest level in nearly six years as borrowers struggled to finalize home purchases, particularly in expensive areas.
The National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of pending home sales for July fell 16.1 percent from a year ago and 12.2 percent from the prior month.
July’s reading of 89.9 was the second-lowest ever for the index and its lowest since September 2001, when the economy was jolted by terrorist attacks.
A reading of 100 is equal to the average level of pending sales activity in 2001, when the index began. The index is designed to predict sales levels over the following two months.
Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, said in a statement that some home purchases aren’t closing because mortgages have been “falling through at the last moment.”
Yun called the problem temporary and related to jumbo home loans above $417,000 that can’t be packaged into securities sold to investors by government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
