As we continue to monitor Alabama’s real estate market this quarter, and interesting statistic has emerged in the Birmingham area: even though total home sales are down in September, the sales of new homes in Birmingham have actually increased 10% during this time. Below is an article from AL.com, originally written by Dawn Kent of the Birmingham News, regarding this recent trend in Birmingham’s real estate market.

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While metro Birmingham’s total home sales dropped last month, there is a bright spot in new home sales, according to a local real estate analyst’s latest report.

Tom Brander said today that the area’s home sales totaled 898 in September, a 5 percent decline from August and a 26 percent fall from September 2009.

But new home sales, included in that total, were 148 last month, a 10 percent increase from August. This marks the second month in a row of improvement in new home sales, Brander said.

Average sold prices also are returning to normal, after last spring’s federal tax credits for home buyers contributed to a dip.

Back then, sales were up, fueled by the incentives. But prices fell as many first-time home buyers entered the market, and a substantial number of less expensive homes were sold.

Now, the number of mid- to upper-end homes sold is rising slightly, compared to the lower-end, contributing to the latest price trend.

“The twelve month moving average price line for both new and used homes is heading up!” Brander wrote in his blog. “This reflects a normalizing mix of home prices, with the elimination of the distortion due to sales of the lower-end being inflated by the tax incentives.”

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Original article in its entirety can be found here on AL.com.

For more information on the latest Birmingham new homes for sale please visit our Community section of our site, or Contact Us with any questions and to schedule a showing.

Below is an article from Dawn Kent of the Birmingham News from AL.com regarding the current state of the Birmingham real estate market. As the demand and value for new homes for sale in Birmingham continue to increase this year, Thornton Homes is proud to be the premiere construction and development company of new home communities in the area. For more information on our new home and townhomes for sale, visit our Community page, or contact us to speak with someone directly.

Birmingham-area Housing Prices Rising (Dawn Kent, The Birmingham News: Read original article here)

Metro Birmingham ranks among the nation’s highest-performing major markets in the latest home price data compiled by a California-based real estate researcher, but the area’s poor performance in past reports indicates continuing volatility.

For the four months ended in June, Birmingham area prices rose 18.2 percent compared with the previous three months, according to Clear Capital.

That’s the fourth-best quarterly price boost in the nation, following Memphis, Cleveland and Milwaukee, all of which posted gains of about 20 percent, the firm noted.

In May, however, Birmingham’s quarterly prices dipped 5 percent, earning it a spot on the nation’s worst-performing major market list at No. 7.

The see-sawing statistics, which were seen in other markets as well, are a sign of instability, said Alex Villacorta, senior statistician for Clear Capital.

“To see double-digit swings in the span of seven months really speaks to the fragility of these markets,” he said.

But the latest pricing data is reason for cautious optimism in Birmingham-area real estate circles, he said.

“The most recent trend is good news — the prices are going in the right direction,” he said. “The fact that they’ve been so up and down, that’s the disheartening part.”

In its quarterly price calculations, Clear Capital uses a rolling-quarter methodology, which compares the most recently ended four months to the previous three months. The process reduces multi-month lag time in reporting data.

The latest data, from the four months ended in June, was lifted by federal tax credits for homebuyers, which magnified typical spring gains. That trend was seen in markets across the nation, as national quarterly prices rose 5.2 percent over the previous three months, which were in the usually slow winter season.

Clear Capital also measures year-over-year prices, and Birmingham’s numbers for June were flat compared to June 2009. Nationally, yearly prices rose 8.8 percent.

The second-quarter median price for metro Birmingham was $136,000, Villacorta said.

Other Clear Capital data shows that sales of foreclosed properties continue to drag down the local market. For the four months ended in May, such properties comprised 32 percent of total sales. That number shrunk to 25 percent for the four months ended in June.