A few interesting stats to take note of in this month's home sale report.

The pace of home sales (closings) is increasing. 
Year to date, the closings are down 23.21% compared to last year --- this decrease in sales is an improvement over 23.28% in April 2008, 24.71% in March 2008, and 27.86% in February 2008.

Sellers aren't putting their homes on the market as quickly.
It was rather disturbing to see the increased rate at which sellers were listing their properties for sale in February (+59%), March (+35%) and April (+43%) as compared to the same month the previous year.  In May 2008, however, sellers put their homes on the market at a pace only 17% than during the same time period in 2007.

Median home sales prices are down?
Interestingly, May 2007 versus May 2008 shows a 3.13% decline in median sales prices.  Furthermore, the year to date median sales price trends over the past few months have been headed in the same direction. 

• Jan '07 - Feb '07 compared to Jan '08 - Feb '08 showed an increase of 6.16%.
• Jan '07 - Mar '07 compared to Jan '08 - Mar '08 showed an increase of 5.08%.
• Jan '07 - Apr '07 compared to Jan '08 - Apr '08 showed an increase of 4.27%.
• Jan '07 - May '07 compared to Jan '08 - May '08 showed an increase of only 2.14%.

Next month's report will certainly be interesting to review to see if this "decrease in the increase" of median home sales prices will continue.  Again --- when we look at year to date figures, median sales prices are not decreasing, but as each month has passed this year, the rate at which they are increasing has been decreasing.  How's that for a tongue twister!

For your reference --- the last few monthly reports:  May 2008  April 2008  March 2008