real estate review
By Ethan C. Nobles, director of media relations for Arkansas Realtors Association

Every year it’s the same – home sales pick up considerably in the summer.
Why? Because families with children tend to move during the summer so they don’t have to pull their kids out of school in the middle of the year. That’s doubly true when a family is moving to a new state.

So, realtors always look forward to the summer and many around the state were truly excited about that season this year. Home sales have slowed noticeably around Arkansas and the nation since the first of last year.

The Jonesboro area is certainly not an exception to the rule in that home sales tend to pick up in the summer. So, how did the housing market in Craighead county fare this year?

Pretty well according to the latest numbers. Through the first five months of the year, there were about 82 homes a month sold in Craighead County. If we take a look at sales from July 15 through Aug.15 – a comparable, 30-day period – we find that there were 106 homes sold and that’s a considerable increase over the winter and spring average.

Furthermore, the average homeowner didn’t lose much in the way of value, either. If we look at the July 15 through Aug. 15 period, the average sale price for an existing home was $134,595 – a 7.2 percent increase over an average of $125,554 in the same period last year.

That’s not to say that the number of homes sold didn’t decline in 2008. There were 12 fewer homes sold in the aforementioned, 30-day period this year than in 2007, but that was expected. The good news is that we’re not talking about much of a decline in Craighead County and that’s a far cry from news we’ve heard from struggling markets around the nation over the past couple of years.
Furthermore, inventories as of Aug. 22 were holding steady at 651 homes for sale in Craighead County. We tend to worry about markets that have huge gains in inventory, but the Jonesboro market has fluctuated between approximately 600 and 700 homes all year long.

We’re not seeing a lot of inventory built up in price ranges that aren’t selling, either. In troubled markets, you tend to have a lot of inventory accumulate in higher price ranges, but that’s not the case in Craighead County as 458 homes of the 651 for sale are priced at $200,000 or less.

It just so happens that most of the sales in the area are in that price range, so it appears that inventory is turning over pretty quickly at that price point. Furthermore, homes priced above that level are selling fairly well, too.

The end result of a stable inventory results in stable prices and that’s good news for sellers in the area. Buyers benefit because you don’t get the dramatic inflation in prices that was common just a few years ago.

One thing to keep an eye on, however, is mortgage rates. Those have been creeping up slightly since around April and buyers should watch those rates as closely as they’ve been keeping an eye on prices lately.

Mortgage rates remain low, but bear in mind that even the slightest increase can result in thousands of extra dollars paid in interest over the life of a mortgage. There aren’t any experts out there that are warning the public about the double-digit mortgage rates that hit the market in the 1980s, but it’s still a good idea to track what mortgages are doing should you think about buying a home.

I doubt if you’ll find a single realtor in Jonesboro who will claim that the housing market in Craighead County is ideal. Still, it looks pretty good compared to some of the slumping markets around the nation.

Truth be told, housing markets throughout most of Arkansas look pretty healthy when compared to the rest of the nation, but Jonesboro is one of the most stable ones in the state.