July provides mixed message for Summit County real estate

Summit County real estate sales generated a mixed message in the month of July. Dollar sales continued the trend of double digit year over year (YOY) gains increasing 23% over July of 2014. Sales in the month totaled $117.9 million . Despite the strong YOY gain, July trailed the $129.7 million of sales in June. Typically sales peak later in the year but given that June was up 86% YOY, it’s not surprising July was a little softer and we wouldn’t be surprised by a rebound in August.
Transaction volume had a weaker performance than total dollar sales. For the month, volume was essentially flat at 202 transactions versus 201 in July of last year. Transactions were also down a hefty 23% from June.
There was no clear pattern in the mix of sales for the month. Properties below $300,000 represented a smaller percentage of total sales than in the prior 6 months as did sales in the $700,000-$1 million range and sales over 2.5 million. Transactions between $300,000 and $700,000 were above trend (53.1% of sales vs 49%) and sales in the $1-1.5 million range accounted for 6.8% of the total versus under 5.% through June.
The average single family selling price for July was in line with the prior six months and now stands at $862,351 year to date. Multi-family pricing also showed little movement at $391,230. Even the more volatile figure for land shifted down only $4,000 to $387,863. All three averages, however, are still showing strong gains, (9.8%, 9.4% and 21.9% respectively) over the year end 2014 figures.