Report: Regional home prices and sales activities falling in first half
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PITTSBURGH – For only the second time in 15 years, metropolitan Pittsburgh’s median home price fell in the first half this year, according to a report released Tuesday by Pittsburgh-based RealStats.
According to the report, the region’s median home price stood at $131,370 based on sales from January through June, down 1.23 percent from $133,000 last year. Median home price also fell in 2009 to $116,447 from $116,600 in 2008, and remained unchanged from 2010 to 2011 at $122,000. Since 2009, median home price has increased on average, 2.1 percent annually.
RealStats figures are based on recorded arm’s length sales of homes, townhomes, and duplexes with a price of at least $10,000 in the counties of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland from Jan. 1 through June 30 and include both new and existing construction.
Looking at the various price segments, activity fell the greatest for homes priced between $150,000 and $400,000. RealStats said at the end of the first half last year, buyers took title to 4,827 homes in this range. That figure fell by 183 homes to 4,644, a drop of 3.8 percent. Home sales over $400,000 jumped from 832 in 2013 to 880 at the halfway point this year, an increase of 5.8 percent. The 48 additional high-end home sales this year was offset by a rise of 29 sales under $50,000 and 63 between $100,000 and $150,000. Activity between $50,000 and $100,000 fell by 110 from 2,609 in 2013 to 2,499 this year.
The number of homes sold fell 1.2 percent from 12,927 in 2013 to 12,774 this year. Sales activity in the first half of last year increased in all price segments from 2012.
Individually, activity fell in four of the five area counties with Westmoreland County seeing sales increase by 10 homes. Activity fell by 57 homes in Allegheny, 50 in Washington, 33 in Butler and 23 in Beaver. As a percentage, those drops ranged from seven-tenths percent in Allegheny to 4 percent in Washington, which sold 1,195 units through June 30, down 50 units from the 1,25 sold in the first half of 2013.
Regionally, sales activity in the five counties peaked at 15,932 in 2004 and fell to a low of 9,656 in 2009.
Washington County also saw total dollar volume sales decline by $29,765,036, moving from $248,380,823 in 2013’s first half to $218,615,787 through June 30 of this year.
According to RealStats, the first half median price of a home this year is $145,000, $24,900 less than the $169,900 recorded for the comparable period last year, while the average home price for the first half this year of $182,942, was $16,561 less than the $199,503 for the first half of 2013.
Homebuyers shelled out $2.17 billion in the first six months of 2014 up from $2.16 billion one year ago, marking the sixth first half since 2000 for the region to log more than $2 billion in home sales. Dollar volume peaked in 2006 at $2.21 billion and fell to a low of $1.39 billion in 2009.