Home sales in Arkansas rose 8.2 percent in April from the same month a year ago, but the average home price fell 5.2 percent, according to a report Wednesday from the Arkansas Realtors Association.
The state's housing market is still recovering, in need of some buoyancy in prices, economists said.
"It's another solid month for 2014," said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "I think things are definitely on the track of another year of improvement in the real estate market."
More than 2,400 homes were sold in the 43 counties that report to the association, up from about 2,200 in April 2013.
There were 424 homes sold in Pulaski County and 386 homes sold in Benton County in April. Washington County, where 193 homes were sold, saw sales fall 12.3 percent from 2013.
The average price of homes in the 43 counties declined from $158,739 in 2013 to $150,426 in April, according to the report, which includes previously owned homes and new homes.
Two of the top three counties in home sales -- Pulaski and Washington counties -- saw home prices fall about 10 percent in April, compared with the same month in 2013.
"These gains in the number of sales is coming at the loss of prices falling," said Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech University.
He said the "volume of money changing hands" in real estate is up, meaning more people are willing to invest money in houses and banks are lending money.
"It's a good sign for that to begin to happen," Fusaro said. "We just need a little more time to grow."
Higher interest rates are "keeping prices from accelerating," said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
"The fact that April was up opposed to last April is good news for the whole market generally," she said. "We've got to continue to see stability or small increases in the volume of units if we are going to see prices stabilize or go up."
So far this year, the state has seen a 10 percent increase in the number of homes sold, Pakko said.
"We're in a positive growth territory relative to last year, which was a rather good year," he said.
Pakko said he expects growth in home sales this year but doesn't think the increase will be as big as last year, when home sales rose 12.7 percent.
"Last year, one of the reasons it was such a strong year as a whole, was strong sales in July and August," he said. "So we may, in fact, see the year over year not be as impressive or even go into the negatives."
Home buying tends to pick up in the summer months, Fusaro said.
"There's hope that as we move into the prime season, it will be better than last year's prime season," he said. "I'm hopeful about the rest of the season because I certainly think there's a lot of potential for the rest of this selling season."
Business on 05/29/2014