Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The Kansas Association of Realtors is reporting that February 2010 homes sales were down 12% from February 2009. All February stats were affected by the fierce winter weather but this is discouraging news nevertheless. It’s especially discouraging since home sales nationally INCREASED 7% over the same period. The actual drop was 1,463 home sales in February 2009 to 1,699 during February 2010. This news follows a 7% drop in February’s stats compared to January this year.

The Kansas Association or Realtor report concludes – using February sales rate and number of listings on the market at that time – that there’s  11.3 months of inventory on the market in the state of Kansas. Mortage rates also jumped from January to February with Freddie Mac reporting the average 30-year fixed rate at 4.97% in January but rising to 5.21% in February.

There was good news nationally with March building permits for new construction rising more than 7% from February to March of this year. Locally in the Kansas City metro area, 213 new homes went under contract during February, compared to 230 in March. I assume most of these are build jobs and that bank’s are loosening the reigns on spec loans after the recent news that more foreclosure sales were scheduled nationally last quarter than in any quarter dating back to January 2005.

Posted by Jason A. Brown