Summit County real estate sales ended 2019 with a big bang. Dollar sales rose 27 percent to $181.6 million while transaction volume increased 29 percent to 230 sales. While transaction volume was essentially flat with November of this year, dollar volume was up 7.7 percent.
For the full year, dollar volume rose 9 percent to $1.9 billion dollars, the highest level in Summit County history. Despite the strong December, transaction volume still failed to match the levels of 2018, falling 3 percent to 2,442 sales.
Price point trends for December and the full year followed a similar pattern. Sales at the low end as a percentage of all sales trailed their historical norms significantly. In the month, sales below $500,000 accounted for 29.2 percent of all sales and for all of 2019 that number was 32.2 percent. In 2018, that range accounted for 37.2 percent and as recently as 2015 it was 59.9 percent.
Most of the mid tier price points at $100,000 increments from $500,000 to $2 million were ahead of 2018 while the $2.0-3.0 share dipped slightly.
For the full year, average selling prices (ASPs) rose for both single family and multi-family properties. The single family ASP rose 10.5 percent to $1,262,929 al-though the year over year gain moderated as the year progressed. Multi-family ASP increased by a more modest 6.9% reaching $559,776. That was the smallest increase for the category since 2016 when multi-family prices rose only 2.6 percent.
The less impressive performance in the multi-family category could be explained by the inventories. Total inventory in January 2020 fell from December in its normal seasonal pattern. But, as has been the case for several months , January 2020 multi-family listings are up an impressive 42 percent year over year. Single family listings for the same time period were down almost 9 percent.