Housing Market Summary

Implications: This report for the 2nd Quarter of 2007 is part of a regular series produced by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development Research. While the first quarter of 2007 had shown some improvement in housing affordability, the second quarter showed an increase in prices. Quantity of sales declined however.

Analysis: The article provides a good high level summary and comparative perspective. My own statistics for the Washington D.C./Baltimore region showed some surprisingly higher numbers for average sale prices in the month of July even though the month of June had shown some declines compared to a year ago.

I saw sales numbers and buyer traffic also decline in July even though June had been better.

Since sellers in general have been reluctant to reduce prices, it is possible that July saw the average price increase as some buyers who had to buy before the school season did so.

The August numbers are about to be released and it will be very interesting to see what they show.