Cold, snow cool sales of homes in February Metro Indy sales fell 13.6%; Madison County saw only increase By Tim Spalding, The Indianapolis Star 14 March 2007 Freezing temperatures and rounds of snow, coupled with a long Super Bowl weekend, added up to a tough month for Indianapolis-area home sales. February home sales in Central Indiana fell 13.6 percent from the same month a year before, real estate company F.C. Tucker said Tuesday. February's drop followed a 6 percent gain in January and an 11 percent drop in December, according to historical data from the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors. Tucker reported 2,113 pending home sales last month in its nine-county survey area, compared with 2,445 a year ago. MIBOR won't release its official February completed home sales count until March 26. Madison County was the only county to show a year-over-year increase, with sales climbing 10.7 percent. Marion County had the second-best showing with a decline of 7.1 percent. It was bad news everyone could see coming. "We got all that snow. They (real estate agents) realized the driveways weren't plowed out, and the streets were not plowed out, and so there won't be a lot of people looking at real estate," said H. James Litten, president of F.C. Tucker's residential division. Landrigan & Co. Realtors, which tracks sales on a 12-county basis using a different formula, said sales dropped from 2,024 to 1,671, or 17 percent, in the same comparison period. "It had a great effect," President G.B. Landrigan said of the Colts-cold weather combo. "The city was consumed with the Colts. And weather always plays a part." Real estate experts say the first quarter already was going to pose a challenge to brokers because of exceptionally strong growth in the first three months of last year. Last year, February home sales were up 26 percent from 2005 levels. Typically, the real housing push begins with spring. The heaviest sales volume comes from May through August. The National Association of Realtors reported that winter storms in February were expected to have a negative effect on home sales throughout the U.S. The association's pending home-sales index for January was down 8.9 percent compared with the previous January. The slowdown nationally comes amid a rise in the number of foreclosures and tightening standards among lenders, especially for high-risk borrowers. However, real estate agents in Central Indiana say they again are seeing more folks at open houses and the like. Vicky Peters, managing broker at Carpenter Realtors' office in Avon, says motivated sellers, a lot of housing inventory to choose from and interest rates under 7 percent also are factors. "It seems like the buyers are just coming out of nowhere," she said. Litten said the number of showings on Tucker-listed homes during the first week of March is reason for optimism. Call Star reporter Tom Spalding at (317) 444-6202.