ALBANY — Closed sales of previously owned homes plunged again in December, as the real-estate market wrapped up the year on a down note. New York realtors sold 9,758 existing homes in the final month of 2022, down 31 percent from the 14,138 homes they sold in December 2021. Pending sales in December also fell […]
ALBANY — Closed sales of previously owned homes plunged again in December, as the real-estate market wrapped up the year on a down note.
New York realtors sold 9,758 existing homes in the final month of 2022, down 31 percent from the 14,138 homes they sold in December 2021.
Pending sales in December also fell more than 20 percent and new listings plummeted 25 percent, portending further declines in closed homes sales in the coming months.
That’s according to the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR)’s December housing-market report issued Jan. 20.
“Low inventory and decreasing home sales were indicators of a near perfect storm for a slowing market to close out 2022 across the Empire State,” NYSAR said in its report.
The one bit of good news is interest rates started to fall. The association cites Freddie Mac as indicting the average monthly interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage dipped from 6.81 percent in November to 6.36 percent in December.
Data details
Pending sales in New York totaled 7,611 in December, a decline of 20.3 percent from the 9,546 pending sales in the same month in 2021, according to the NYSAR data.
The worsening real-estate market finally hit home prices, which had been soaring for several years. The median sales price of homes fell 5.3 percent to $356,250 in December 2022 from $375,000 in December 2021.
The months’ supply of homes for sale at the end of December stood at 2.8 months, up from 2.7 months a year earlier. A 6 month to 6.5-month supply is considered to be a balanced market, NYSAR says.
The inventory of homes for sale totaled 31,222 in December, down 8.7 percent from 34,212 in the year-prior month.
All home-sales data is compiled from multiple-listing services in New York, and it includes townhomes and condominiums in addition to existing single-family homes, according to NYSAR.