RealtyTrac, a source for comprehensive housing data, released its May 2014 Residential & Foreclosure Sales Report, which shows that U.S. residential properties, including single family homes, condominiums and townhomes, sold at an estimated annual pace of 5,147,550 in May, virtually unchanged from April and an increase of less than 1 percent from May 2013.
The median sales price of U.S. residential properties — including both distressed and non-distressed sales — was $180,000, up 6 percent from the previous month and up 13 percent from a year ago. The year-over-year increase in May was the second consecutive month with a double-digit annual increase in U.S. home prices, and the biggest annual increase since U.S. home prices bottomed out in March 2012.
The median price of distressed sales — properties in the foreclosure process or bank-owned — was $120,000, 37 percent below the median price of non-distressed properties: $190,000. Distressed sales and short sales combined accounted for 14.3 percent of all U.S. residential sales in May, down from 15.6 percent of sales in April and down from 15.9 percent of all sales in May 2013.
“Distressed sales continue to represent a smaller share of the overall sales pie nationwide, helping to boost median home prices higher given that distressed sales tend to be in lower price ranges,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “When broken down by average price range, U.S. sales are clearly shifting away from the lower end. Properties selling below $200,000 represented 50 percent of all sales in May, but that was down from a 55 percent share a year ago. Meanwhile, the share of homes selling above $200,000 increased from a 45 percent a year ago to a 50 percent in May 2014.”
Home sales in higher price ranges represent growing share of market
Sales prices in every price range above $200,000 analyzed in the report increased as a share of total sales, both from the previous month and from a year ago, with the increase generally higher in the higher price ranges.
The share of home sales in the $200,000 to $300,000 price range increased 2 percent from the previous month and were up 6 percent from a year ago, but the share of home sales in all price ranges above $750,000 was up more than 20 percent from a year ago.
Meanwhile the share of home sales decreased from a year ago in all price ranges below $200,000, with bigger decreases corresponding to lower price ranges. The share of homes priced between $100,000 and $200,000 decreased 5 percent from a year ago, while the share of homes between $50,000 and $100,000 decreased 13 percent and the share of homes priced below $50,000 — often highly distressed homes — decreased 22 percent.
Home sales in the $100,000 to $200,000 price range accounted for one-third of all home sales in May — the largest percentage of any price range — but homes priced between $200,000 and $400,000 were close, accounting for nearly 32 percent of all sales for the month. Sales of homes priced in the $200,000 to $400,000 range were at their highest percentage of U.S. home sales since September 2008 — a 68-month high.