July 3, 2010

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Update

The Saint Louis real estate market, which saw very high rates of foreclosure during the nadir of the economic recession, is starting to show signs of recovery. As the local housing market begins to recovery, fewer Saint Louis homes for sale are the product of foreclosures. A June 30, 2010 article from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch found that “Homes in foreclosure made up one-fifth of all residential real estate sales in St. Louis in the first quarter, according to RealtyTrac, a big drop from last year and a share considerably lower than the national average. The real estate data service found that 19.5 percent of the homes sold in St. Louis in the first three months of the year were in some stage of the foreclosure process. That's down from 34.8 percent in the same period last year, but up from 16.4 percent in the fourth quarter. January through March is typically a slow period for home sales, though the tax credit for first-time homebuyers spurred some extra sales this year. So foreclosures - which are less seasonal - are likely to make up a bigger-than-normal slice of the pie. Nationwide, 31 percent of homes sold faced foreclosure, down from 37.4 percent a year earlier. In Nevada, 64 percent of sales faced foreclosure. RealtyTrac also found that the average price of home sold in foreclosure in St. Louis lagged the average of all homes by 29 percent.”

A June 30, 2010 report from KMOX News reflected the same trend in the Saint Louis housing market – fewer foreclosures both overall and proportionately. The article by Michael Calhoun stated that “St. Louis checks in eleven-points below than the national average for home foreclosures, according to first quarter stats due out Wednesday. Since January, 19.5-percent of local home sales were of foreclosed properties.  The national number is 31-percent. "It's interesting to compare to a year ago," Daren Bloomquist said.  "The first quarter of 2009, in the St. Louis metro area, foreclosure sales actually accounted for 35-percent of all sales, so it was higher back then. But it's much, much worse than 2005, when foreclosures represented less than one-percent of sales.”

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