Existing home sales in the Midwest tumbled 17 percent last month from July 2007, while the median price in the region inched up to more than $175,000, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
In all 12 Midwestern cities tracked in The Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report, also released Monday, sales fell by at least 10 percent from July last year. The report analyzed home sales recorded by all real estate agents in those cities, regardless of company affiliation.
The median price fell in every city in the AP-Re/Max report, except Rapid City, S.D., where it rose by 4.8 percent from a year ago to $179,000. The largest price drop, by contrast, was in Detroit where the sinking economy and skyrocketing foreclosures helped push the median price down 36 percent to $81,000.
Bob Mitchell, an agent who works in Detroit and its suburbs, is currently listing a 6,100-square-foot brick Queen Anne-style home, which needs major repairs, for a mere $80,000. "It's just amazing," he said. "How much lower can they go?"
Properties in better shape, he said, are receiving multiple offers, and some are selling for more than their listing price because buyers "are seeing the value."
Around the country, buyers who don't have to sell immediately have been pulling their properties off the market in hopes that things will turn around.
In Minneapolis, prices were down 12.5 percent -- the second-largest drop after Detroit -- to a median of nearly $192,000 in July.
Nationwide, existing home sales in July were 13 percent below where they were a year ago, the NAR reported, while the median price fell 7.1 percent to $212,000.
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