Home sales in Arkansas remained strong in September, the Arkansas Realtors Association said Wednesday.
Realtors sold 2,859 homes in September, up about 13 percent from 2,525 in the same month last year. The association surveys home sales in 43 of the largest counties in Arkansas.
"Obviously, looking at the volume, it was a very strong September," said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. "That is accompanied by modest price gains, which also indicates a healthy market."
The average home price increased 2.2 percent to $160,508 in September, the Realtors Association said.
The monthly sales total was the best since September 2005, when 3,170 homes were sold in the state. That was more than two years before the recession began in December 2007.
The beginning of the recession and the stock market crash of 2008 led to low Arkansas home sales until they began to recover in 2013.
Sales totaled about 24,030 for the first nine months this year, up 10.6 percent compared with the same period last year, the association said. That was the best nine-month start since 2006, when slightly more than 25,800 homes were sold through September.
This year has followed the volume pace of 2007, when almost 31,000 homes were sold for the year, Deck said.
"At the time, we thought [2007] was the boom of the boom," she said. "But, finally, eight years later we're back up to those kinds of volumes."
If the state continues on this pace of home sales, this year is likely to end with double-digit growth in the housing market, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Pakko had forecast last fall that home sales would finish 2015 with close to double-digit growth.
Benton County Realtors sold 487 homes in September, the most of any county in the state. Pulaski County was second with 469 sales, and Washington County was third with 257 homes sold.
Northwest Arkansas is seeing a lot of activity in home sales, Deck said.
Nine-month home sales are up 15 percent in Benton County and almost 18 percent in Washington County.
"The average prices both in Benton County and Washington County are very close to the peak before the recession happened," Deck said. "So that means that people who [owed more on their homes than they were worth], if they were able to sit it out, are now back to [their] true [home value]."
Home sales also are growing in Pulaski County and northeast Arkansas, Pakko said. For the first nine months of the year, home sales are up about 7.5 percent in Pulaski County and 14 percent in Craighead County.
September was also a strong month at Bank of Little Rock Mortgage, one of the largest mortgage lenders in Pulaski County, said Scott McElmurry, the firm's chief executive officer.
"We're just seeing a lot more consistency month over month," McElmurry said.
There were about 30 percent more mortgage loans in September than a year earlier at Bank of Little Rock Mortgage, McElmurry said.
Low mortgage interest rates have contributed to the increase in home sales. A buyer with decent credit can get a 30-year fixed mortgage at about 4 percent, McElmurry said. A 15-year fixed loan has an interest rate of about 3.125 percent, McElmurry said.
The association also released home sales for August on Wednesday. There were 2,874 homes sold in Arkansas in August, up 5.6 percent from August 2014. The average home price for August was $163,468.
Benton County led with 519 homes sold, followed by Pulaski County with 444 and Washington County with 306.
A Section on 11/19/2015