December home sales fell 14% Shaky end of year drove '06 sales in Indy down 0.9%, MIBOR says [The Indianapolis Star, 8 February 2007] By Jeff Swiatek jeff.swiatek@indystar.com Indianapolis' home-buying market ended 2006 on a shaky note, with sales dropping about 14 percent in December from the same month a year earlier. The drop in December helped drive home sales for the year down 0.9 percent over the record-setting year of 2005, the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors said. That drop was the third-largest monthly sales decline during 2006 for metro-area home sales. September and July were worse. But the nearly 14 percent drop in Indianapolis was worse than the 8 percent decline in December home sales nationally, according to the National Association of Realtors. Even so, the Indianapolis area fared better overall in 2006 than the nation. The number of homes sold nationwide last year fell about 8 percent, compared with 1 percent in Indianapolis. Area real estate officials declined Wednesday to pinpoint a cause for the December slump, but they said there was improvement in January. January home sales for the 13-county metro area, as tracked by MIBOR, slipped just 1 percent to 2 percent from a year earlier, according to preliminary data, said H. James Litten, president of F.C. Tucker's residential division. Landrigan & Co. Realtors estimates there was a bigger drop of 4.1 percent in area home sales in January compared to last year. That number should improve slightly when late-filed home sales are added to the total, it said. MIBOR won't release its official January home sales count for a few more weeks. Home-buying activity in January seemed to benefit from positive economic news, with unemployment remaining low, interest rates stable and the stock market surging, Litten said. January sales were "certainly not as worrisome as some were expecting," especially given the big December decline, Landrigan said in its monthly report. The average sales price of homes sold in January fell 3.6 percent, to $137,529, over the average price a year ago, Landrigan said, using the preliminary numbers. Toby Davis, director of customer service at United Van Lines in Indianapolis, said his company has seen business improve in the past few weeks, with more moves and more customers calling to request estimates for a move. "It was slow to the third week in January. It started to pick up here recently," he said. United Van Lines is one of the largest movers in the Midwest. This week, MIBOR also said that the median sales price of homes in the area last year fell 1.6 percent, to $122,900 from $124,900, though the average price of homes sold last year rose by 0.6 percent. The median price -- the point at which half the homes sold for less and half the homes sold for more -- is less affected by extremes in home values than are average pries. Nationally, the median home price rose 1.1 percent to $222,000 last year. Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at (317) 444-6483.