State avoids home sales woes seen nationally

It's steady as she goes for Oklahoma City-area housing, which — so far — seems to have weathered the national tempest in the homes and mortgage markets.

The metro area's housing inventory decreased slightly, to a 5.8-month supply, from September to October, according to The Oklahoman's calculations using numbers from the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors.

October ended with 9,504 houses listed for sale with Realtors. The inventory estimate of 5.8 months was determined by dividing the listings on the market by 1,616, the average monthly sales over the past year.

Realtors handled the sale of 1,516 houses in October. If that pace were maintained, it would take 6.2 months to sell all the houses for sale in the Oklahoma City area.

Longtime Realtors here consider a six-month inventory to be an almost balanced market, but giving buyers the advantage.

"Just barely,” said Victoria Caldwell, president of the metro Realtors association.

The nation as a whole had a 10.4-month supply of homes for sale in October, a nine-year high, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Oklahoma City home prices continued to rise year over year, according to the October figures from the metro Realtors.

The median price rose from $124,900 in October 2006 to $129,900 in October this year.

The average price rose from $145,583 in October 2006 to $157,169 in October this year.

The month-to-month change, however, showed a slight hint of the larger-than-recent inventory:

The median home price, considered the best gauge of moves in prices in general because half of sales were higher and half were lower, slipped from $130,000 in September to $129,900 in October — a decrease of 0.1 percent.

Not statistically significant, said Caldwell, an Edmond Realtor and co-owner of Dominion Group, which owns RE/MAX First in Edmond and RE/MAX Associates in Oklahoma City.

The average price, however, increased 3.5 percent, from $151,801 in September to $157,169 in October, which indicates more strength on the higher end than the lower.

The cost of borrowing money to buy a house dropped in October.

The average interest rate paid on a traditional, 30-year mortgage extended last month in the metro area was 6.05 percent, according to the Realtors. That was 2.7 percent less than the month before and 4.6 percent less than in October 2006.

Houses sold slightly faster in October than in September — in 79 days on average, down from 81 days in September, but up from 70 days in October 2006.

Caldwell said she sees little to worry about. The slowdown just seems drastic compared to the boom, she said.

"We've been in a seller's market for five years,” she said.

An inventory of 15,000 homes for sale, homes languishing on the market for almost 400 days, interest rates at 14 percent, all dark memories of the mid-1980s housing crash that accompanied the oil bust, "When we were really worried, those were the numbers,” Caldwell said.

For their part, metro-area home builders kept cooling their heels.

Through October, Oklahoma City, Edmond, Midwest City, Moore and Norman collectively issued 4,826 single-family building permits, down 13.3 percent from the first 10 months of last year, according to the Central Oklahoma Home Builders Association.

Only Moore issued more permits — 5.3 percent.

Year-to-date changes in the other cities were all negative, but varied widely: Oklahoma City down 8 percent; Midwest City down 30 percent; Edmond down 20 percent; Norman down 40 percent — but those drops are from near-record highs last year.

"I think what we're seeing is just a return to what history would reflect as a ‘normal' market, which will still have its slight ups and downs,” said Jeff Click, vice president and secretary-treasurer of the Central Oklahoma Home Builders Association. "We've spent so many consecutive years seeing nothing but an increase in numbers, and we knew that wouldn't last forever.