Abq Home Sales Take Surprising Jump in December

The sale of 807 single family detached homes closed in Metro Albuquerque during December. The performance is amazing. Two reasons: The December performance was 23% ahead of December 2014. It happened in an economy that seems to be improving, but with a good many of the new jobs coming from Medicaid (i.e., welfare) expansion. Second, The sales were 13 units more than the 794 sales pending during November.
The December closed sales performance was also 155 more than during November, a 24% increase.
Sales of condos and townhouses also jumped during December, going from 62 in November to 90 in December.
During December, homes took an average of 61 days to sell, a ten-day improvement from December 2014.
The seasonal rule is that sales decline from the previous month in December, January and February and then pick up in March.
The strength of the performance motivated a call to the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors, which released the December sales report December 11. Nothing unusual happened during December, GAAR staff said.
For December, sales were pending for 679 homes, a 4.6% increase from December 2014 and down 115 units or 14% from November. The seasonal pattern reappeared here.
The median sales price was $175,500 during December. The average sales price was $208,229. Both figures were down about $5,000 from November and dropped around one percent from December 2015.