It’s actually been a little while since we’ve given you numbers nerds some real estate statistics. There are some blogs that post constantly about statistics pertaining to the real estate and mortgage industry. We understand why—there are a lot of them. Then, there are lots of spins on those statistics to create even more statistics! What fun!

That being said, a healthy dose of stats every once in a while is good to keep things in perspective. Since the spring quarter of 2014 was actually pretty great, we figured it was time to share some. Let’s have a look at how the housing market faired during the spring quarter (Q2) of 2014.

We’re going to be using this great Monthly Housing Summary chart put out by the National Association of Realtors. It shows the Median List Prices, Total Listings, and Median Age of Inventory for July 2014. It then compares month over month (July vs. June) and year over year (July 2014 vs. July 2013).

Link: Monthly Housing Summary

Median List Prices

The median list price for the US was $214,900, up 7.5 percent from last year and down 0.1 percent from June. What does this mean? It means that sellers perceive higher values for their homes as buyers are in a frenzy to snatch them up (a trend we’ve been seeing in the last year for sure).

Total Listings

The number of total listings on the market for the US was 1,979,475, which is down 2.3 percent from last year and up 4.5 percent from last month. What does this mean? It means that there are fewer homes being listed on the market. This only adds to buyer frenzy as buyers are fighting over fewer homes on the market. It’s not surprising there were more listed in July than June—month-by-month numbers fluctuate a lot.

Median Age of Inventory

This represents how long homes are actively listed on the market. The US numbers show average days on market of 82, down 3.5 percent from last year and up 7.9 percent over June. There’s not a huge difference in the numbers here, though it is nice to see this number not going up any since last year. Again, month-by-month numbers fluctuate a lot so I wouldn’t worry terribly about them.

So there you go, overall the market is still returning to a healthier state, competition for homes remains fierce, and pricing continues to increase. Overall not to shabby, Spring.

Nice newsletter. Good article. Good information. Thank you. Carol

For conventional financing, borrowers with scores at 740 or anywhere above generally receive the same loan pricing (rate and cost). That being said, the better your credit the higher your chances of receiving loan approval with high debt to income (up to 50%) or high loan to value (up to 95%) which can be a major benefit when applying for a new loan. For Jumbo financing, borrowers with credit scores above 800 are generally rewarded with both better pricing and easier guidelines. There are no situations where better credit is a negative when obtaining new financing so we should all continue to strive to reach and then stay in the 800’s.

What are the advantages of a score over 800

Thank you Mike for this information. As a residential realtor the information that you provide is crucial to a successful transaction for my clients. You are indeed a pleasure to recommend to all of my clients. You are so professional, thorough, conscientious and pleasant to work with. !!

Hi Dane! Wanted to make sure I'm clear on this. Am I right in saying that on whichever remodel is done you still take a loss rather than an increase in value - the ROI will never exceed 100% of cost?