In October, there was a drop year-over-year in new home sales in the Wichita, KS market, but the percentage decline was less than that of September 2011, hinting that the market may be strengthening. Sales dropped 21.1% from a year earlier to 45. This followed a 44.4% decline year-over-year in September.

A total of 628 new homes were sold during the 12 months that ended in October, down from 640 for the year that ended in September.

Of the total number of sales, new home sales made up 6.7%. A year earlier, new home sales represented 7.3% of total sales. Sales of new and existing homes dropped year-over-year in October after also falling in September year-over-year.

The average price of new homes jumped year-over-year in October to $234,814 per unit, a rise of 23.6%. This lift is better than the 5.4% rise in September year-over-year.

The average mortgage size on new homes moved north year-over-year along with new home prices. It increased to $209,497 in October, a 27.0% bump. In September 2011, average mortgage size climbed 13.0% from a year earlier. Of the overall sale price, the percentage that was being financed rose 2.4 percentage points year-over-year to 89.2% in October 2011. This was another rise after September 2011 when there was a 5.6 percentage point rise from a year earlier.

There was no change in the composition of the new-home market with regard to the types of properties sold in October 2011. Single-family home sales have accounted for all of new home sales while attached unit sales have made up no part of sales.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to decline from a year earlier in October, but did not look to be a burden on the market. Combined, foreclosures plus REO sales accounted for 18.0% of existing home sales, below 31.7% a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales involving foreclosures declined to 5.9% in October from 16.2% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales slipped to 12.1% from 15.4% a year earlier.

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