Albuquerque, N.M., home prices dipped slightly last month, but still maintained their torrid rate of growth over the past year.
The median sale price in July for single-family detached homes dropped from $235,000 in June, a 10-year high, to $232,000, according to the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors' market statistics.
However, the July median home price still represents an increase of more than 10% over last July, according to the association. The median sale price for single-family attached homes continued to grow last month, reaching $168,450, an increase of nearly 19% over last July.
Statewide home prices also continued to climb in July, with the median home price rising slightly from $224,588 in June to $224,900 in July, according to the New Mexico Association of Realtors.
John Lopez, president of the Realtors' association, attributed the continued growth to a recovering local economy and new arrivals from neighboring states, including Texas and Colorado, that are getting more crowded and expensive.
"We are surrounded by a bunch of states that are busting at the seams," Lopez said.
Metro Albuquerque also saw a spike in pending sales in July. Offers were accepted on 1,373 attached single-family homes across the metro area in July, an increase of more than 27% compared to last July. The pending sales total surpassed the total from any single month in the past 12 years, and Lopez speculated that it may be a record-high for a single month.
While Lopez said there was a lot of activity across the metro area, he said northeast Albuquerque was a hotspot for activity.
Lopez said many of the sales were for homes that had been on the market for a while. Consequently, housing inventory dropped to record-low levels in July, according to the Realtors' association. However, Lopez pointed to a rise in building permits as evidence that more homes are being built to fill the rise in demand, though he noted that most of the new construction will come in at the higher end of the market.
Lopez said he wasn't concerned with the slight decline in the median home price from June to July, noting that sales often slow down later in the summer, as families start getting ready for school. With additional homes being built, Lopez said the overall trend is very encouraging for Albuquerque's real estate market over the next several years.
"Good things are coming," Lopez said.
