The National Association of Realtors’ released May existing home sales data today, and as expected a decline was reported, registering the lowest month of the last six.  The seasonally adjusted annual rate for the nation in May was 4.81 million, a decline of 3.8% from April, and a 15.3% decline from 2010.  Likewise, NAR reported that median existing home prices declined 4.6% year-over-year.  However, the national figures don’t tell the full story, as a few areas appear to be already on the road to recovery in terms of volume and pricing power. 

According to data from Housing IntelligencePro, smaller Midwest states like North Dakota, Iowa, and Wyoming are seeing the last 12 months of regular resale volume within 31% of the peak of the market in 2006. North Dakota actually saw regular resale activity exceed 2006 levels over the last 12 months.  These areas also have seen the average price per square foot of housing rise over the past 3+ years, which is not typical for most states.

Larger population states are not doing as well but a few show some signs of life.  New York has maintained 60% of resale volume compared to peak 2006 but has also experienced a 12% decline in average price per square foot.

In terms of state pricing, the main standout is Oklahoma.  Despite having depressed volumes of resales (the last 12 months of resales are less than half of what the state had in 2006), Oklahoma has managed to see an increase of 17% in price per square foot.    Other notable gainers in average price per square foot include Nebraska and Mississippi, not large-sized housing market states, but they both saw double digit average price per square foot increases since the peak of the market.

Generally, the areas that show signs of recovery in existing home sales did not see the same degree of run up during the boom years, and have fared better in the wake of the crash.  But while that was more of a novel point in the early years of the housing bust, as housing remains depressed, these are the housing markets which are going to continue to be relatively healthy as they don’t have the same amount of issues to contend with as the more volatile markets.

Some individual metropolitan areas did markedly better than others as well.  Buffalo, NY, is enjoying 95% of the resale activity it saw in 2006, with a mere 1% decline in average price per square foot.  Sarasota, FL, and San Diego, CA, were 2nd and 3rd in a resale volume rank of metro areas with at least 10,000 resales over the last 12 months, although both have seen a substantial decline in price per square foot from the peak, with a 35% and 26% drop, respectively.  Pittsburgh, PA, is 4th in volume resilience, holding onto 63% of volume seen in 2006, as well as seeing a 9% increase in average price per square foot.  Other notable price gainers are Oklahoma City, OK, at 14% gain and 54% of peak volume, Charlotte, NC, which despite only having 29% of peak volume still has seen a 7% gain in price per square foot, and Nashville, TN, which has also seen a 7% gain in price per square foot on 40% of peak 2006 volume.  These metro areas are definitely positive outliers, however, since the majority of metro areas with this scale of resale activity seeing an average loss of 18% in price per square foot since 2006.

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