Birmingham Alabama is Looking On The Bringht Side

Last week an article came out in the Birmingham News pointing out a drop in sales for the month of September. In BIG print it read, "Month's Sales Drop 15%..." Let's read on though, because things may not be as bad as it seems. Let's look on the bright side.

To be "fair and balanced" let's look at both sides of the equation though. Sales are down, it is true. There is no denying this because the numbers back it up. Comparing September 2006 against September 2007 you will see that sales were down from 1,523 in 2006 to 1,283 in 2007. For the year we are down as well from 14,473 in 2006 to 13,942 in 2007 so far. But, the median price is up. In September of 2006 the median sales price was $159,000 and it is now up to $164,200 in September of 2007. New home sales have fallen probably the most. Sales volume in September of 2006 was 7.8 months and is up to 9.2 months of September of 2007.

Now, let's look on the bright side. Last year, 2006, was a banner year for our area. We continue to do all of our comparisons based on our best year ever for sales. So far, we only behind last year by 3.7% which puts on pace to having the second best year ever. So, has the Birmingham real estate market been affected, yes, but are we crumbling as the media would have you think?

Absolutely not. As Gary Keller reminded us a while ago, all real estate is local.