March local home sales, prices drop

Every month, we get a smattering of reports on home sales in various regions before the "official" data comes out from the National Association of Realtors. In my neck of the woods, a real estate brokerage firm called Illustrated Properties releases some numbers on local sales. March figures shows sales down and prices off rather sharply:

* Sales fell 35.8% YOY to 707 units from 1,102 in March 2007.

* The inventory of homes for sale rose 3.6% to 24,891 from 24,029. That means we had roughly 35 months (or just under three years) of supply on the market.

* The median price of an existing home fell 19.3% YOY, or $55,000, to a new cycle low of $230,000.

If there's any good news, it's that the year-over-year rate of change in sales has improved somewhat. The "months supply at current sales pace" figures aren't as dreadful as they were a couple months earlier, either. But prices continue to free fall and the supply glut remains extremely large. So if you're a home seller, don't expect any miracles.