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Realtors: 'Unique' Market Saw Prices Rise Again In October

Ralph Weisheit
/
WGLT
The Bloomington-Normal Association of Realtors released new sales figures on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.

The pace of home sales in the Bloomington-Normal market slowed in October, even as the average price continued to climb due to low inventory, local real estate agents reported Wednesday.

In October, there were 196 existing homes sold, down 8 percent from a year ago, according to data released from the Bloomington-Normal Association of Realtors. Through 10 months, total existing-home sales for 2017 are about flat—down 0.3 percent—compared with 2016, BNAR reported. (Existing-home sales comprise the vast majority of all residential real estate activity in Bloomington-Normal.)

Tight inventory has driven up prices through most of the year. The average price of an existing-home sale is now $170,663, up 5 percent from this time a year ago, BNAR reported.

“This is really unique for the Bloomington-Normal area,” said John Armstrong, BNAR’s president. “We will end 2017 with less transactions compared to 2016, but we had much less inventory in 2017, which is causing values to rise. The gain in values will help ‘move up’ buyers with increased equity in 2018.”

The market for newly built homes continues to struggle. Only seven newly built homes were sold last month, half as many as October 2016. Overall sales for newly built homes—with an average price of $301,233 locally—are down 17.9 percent this year.

Armstrong said Bloomington-Normal “has been very consistent with what we've seen nationally” with low inventory driving up prices.

“The national real estate market is made up of many small unique markets. It's nice when we mirror the good we are seeing nationally,” he said.

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