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ALBANY – Housing sales in New York fell by 3.9 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, a report today by the state Association of Realtors found.

Realtors had a positive outlook on the numbers, saying sales growth in the fourth quarter was strong and a federal tax credit program fueled the 2010 sales.

“The housing market sales comeback in the fourth quarter builds hope for an improving 2012 market,” Duncan R. MacKenzie, CEO of the New York State Association of Realtors, said in a statement.

“The continued stabilization of the statewide median sales price is a positive sign for homeowners, and a signal for would-be buyers that it’s time to focus on advantages such as record-low mortgage rates and solid affordability factors rather than price declines.”

The association’s information is based on preliminary single-family sales data. The median sales price statewide was stable through 2011 and remained on par with 2010 at the end of the year, the group said.
New York realtors sold 72,058 existing single-family homes last year, a 3.9 percent drop from the previous year, when they sold 74,970, the group said.

Fourth-quarter sales of existing single-family homes totaled 18,345, 4.2 percent higher than the 17,607 sales in the same quarter of 2010. There were 6,405 sales in December 2011, 2.4 percent higher than same month in 2010 and 10.7 percent higher than November 2011, the Association of Realtors said.

The statewide annual median sales price was $212,500, 0.7 percent less than the $214,000 median in 2010. The fourth quarter 2011 median was $205,000 and the December median was $202,000, compared to $216,000 and $220,000, respectively, in 2010.

“The upward sales swing seems to contradict the low consumer confidence in the housing market as reported in the recent NYSAR/Siena Research Institute Consumer Real Estate Sentiment Survey,” MacKenzie said. “The statewide housing market continues to be unpredictable, punctuated by upswings that have yet to emerge as an ongoing trend.”