House sales fall, but prices up in San Antonio

San Antonio home sales dropped 24 percent in May, the biggest single-month dip so far this year. But sellers tended to get more for their homes, with the median home price rising 4 percent, according to new data.

"We're still in our fourth-best year," said Bob Leonard, chairmand of the San Antonio Board of Realtors. "We look more like 2005, but we continue to show good, strong price appreciation."

San Antonio owners sold 1,821 homes last month, compared with 2,388 in May 2007 - down nearly a quarter - according to the data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. The previous months this year have seen a drop of 10 percent to 21 percen compared with the same month in 2007.

But while it is getting harder to sell homes, successful sellers are getting higher prices in San Antonio. The median sales price was $155,100 last month, versus $149,100 in May of last year, according to the Real Estate Center.

Other parts of Texas are faring better in sales but not prices. In Houston, sales of existing homes were down 13 percent compared with May 2007, according to the Real Estate Center. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, sales were down 12 percent.

Home prices in those cities did not appreciate, though. Houston's median price was flat, and the median price in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was down 2 percent.

Leonard says would-be San Antonio home buyers are sitting on the sidelines in fear that the national foreclosure rate will continue increasing. In other cases, people who have just moved to the area are struggling to sell homes in other parts of the country, and so can't afford to buy a home in San Antonio yet.

Sales will continue to dip based on the continued decline in pending sales in May, said Jim Gaines, housing markets research economist are the Real Estate Center.

"March through June of 2007 had the biggest pending sales, so it's not a surpricse that sales are down and that we will see lower sales going forward," Gaines said.

In May, San Antonio homes spent an average of 90 days on the market for the sixth month in a row. That's up significantly from most of 2007, which saw average days on the market in the mid-60s.

Despite fewer homes selling — and taking longer to do so — San Antonio still is appreciating because of strong sales of higher-priced homes, Gaines said.

“It makes sense because in the mortgage market, fewer entry-level homes are getting sold because they are having more trouble getting financed,” he said. “A lot of the easy terms and easy credit that benefited the entry-level consumer are gone.”