Local home sales continued small but steady gains as normalcy continued its slow return to the housing market after five years of turmoil.
Boone County Home Sales: Number of homes sold in third quarter.
For the fifth straight quarter, home sales in Boone County notched a year-over-year increase. Sales numbers collected by the Columbia Board of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service showed 522 homes were sold in July, August and September this year, compared to 471 homes sold in the third quarter of 2011.
Last year, the first full year since the real-estate crash without special home-buying tax credits, Boone County recorded the lowest number of home sales in more than a decade. The 1,512 homes sold through September this year is only two below the total sold in 2011. But in the second half of 2011, sales numbers began perking up, and small but steady gains have persisted.
Steady home sales have driven down the inventory of available homes in Boone County. The number of homes actively listed for sale is well below the amount in recent years. There were 893 active listings in September 2012 compared to a September low of 1,230 last year and a high for the month in 2007, when 1,405 homes were listed for sale.
“What do you think sales would be if we actually had a normal amount of listings?” asked Brent Gardner, a Realtor with RE/MAX Boone Realty. “I’ve got clients who can’t find the house they’re looking for, so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”
Homes listed for sale have trended lower for much of this year and last year as the area brought down inventory levels that rose to unhealthy heights five to 10 years ago. Typically, a healthy market should have about six months worth of sales listed, said Kim Coleman, a Realtor with Prudential Vision Properties and the president of the Columbia Board of Realtors.
“We’re just a little bit under that,” she said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing for this time of year.”
Still, the lower number of listings means that if buyers aren’t flexible, they might not be able to find exactly what they’re looking for, Coleman said.
“The low number of active listings has been a little bit of an issue,” she said. “It’s good for home sellers because their home will tend to sell a little better, but it’s not good if you’re a buyer.”
Rob Wolverton, a local developer and owner of R. Anthony Development, said new homes are being built to fill demand, but they no longer are being built on a speculative basis.
“The homes are being built and they’re being absorbed, they’re just not getting to the” Multiple Listing Service “because they’re a custom build instead of spec home.”
Residential development and lot sales have been “really solid,” he said. Subdivision developments that stalled during the housing bust are starting to see their lots developed as the city works to absorb the inventory of new home space it developed during the boom.
“We’re starting some additional phases of subdivisions that are coming online, so I’d say overall that’s pretty healthy right now,” he said.
After Columbia fills its available inventory of lots and the housing market continues its recovery, Wolverton said don’t expect to see large subdivision developments that became common in Columbia over the past decade. Tighter lending standards and the risk seen in speculative development could mean smaller developments become the norm.
“It’s going to be very, very difficult to do large-scale subdivisions again,” he said. “There’s going to be fewer people capable of doing those, capable and willing.”