Home-sale agreements in the nine-county Indianapolis area were up nearly 5 percent in June compared to a year ago, the F.C. Tucker Co. announced Monday afternoon. Year-to-date sales contracts through the first six months are up 13.4 percent.
Home builders filed fewer building permits in the nine-county Indianapolis area last month, but filings are still up through the first six months of 2012.
With information booming online, agents are offering more services.
In May, pending sales of existing homes in the Indianapolis area increased 7 percent from the same month last year while building permits for new construction rose 20 percent.
Modest increases in home sales are the latest sign that the market could be starting to turn around nearly five years after the housing bubble burst. Still, housing construction remains at roughly half the pace that economists consider a healthy market.
Purchase agreements of existing homes in the nine-county area tracked by F.C. Tucker Co. hit 2,252 last month, a 3.3-percent increase over April 2011. Year-to-date home sales were up 12 percent.
Pulte is tossing out the prior builder's playbook, which called for duplexes aimed at buyers 55 and older. Pulte rezoned the land to allow for single-family homes on larger lots. The resulting 123 home sites will accommodate ranch-style homes starting in the low $100,000 price range.
Purchase agreements in the nine-county area increased 4.9 percent over March 2011. Existing home sales were up 13.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and have recorded year-over-year improvements for 11 straight months.
Residential building permits are being filed nationally at about half the rate considered healthy by most economists, but builders have grown more confident over the past six months after seeing more people express interest in buying a home.
Purchase agreements in the nine-county area tracked by F.C. Tucker hit 1,728, a 14.7-percent increase over February 2011. The increase marked the 10th straight month of year-over-year improvement.
Building permits filed in the nine-county Indianapolis metropolitan area totaled 194 in January, a 2-percent dip from the same time last year. But industry leaders are cautiously optimistic.
Sales of existing homes in the Indianapolis area are off to a strong start in 2012, with the number of sales agreements increasing 13.4 percent in January compared with the same month a year earlier.
Closed sales last year inched up 1.2 percent in 13 area counties and jumped 18.3 percent from July through December, bolstered by a 7.2-percent increase during the last month of 2011.
The chief of staff to Gov. Mitch Daniels, Earl A. Goode, bought a residential lot from the real estate broker John M. Bales about two years after an agency led by Goode awarded Bales a contract to handle state leasing.
About 12,000 homes were listed for sale at the end of December in the nine-county central Indiana market, a roughly 18-percent drop from a year earlier.
Home-sale agreements increased 7.9 percent in the nine-county Indianapolis area in December, helping the region eke out an annual gain of less than 1 percent.
New-home construction in the Indianapolis area slid in 2011, marking six straight year-over-year declines in residential building. The 3-percent decrease in building permits, however, was the smallest decrease since 2006.
The 7.2-percent increase last month in Indianapolis home-sale agreements marks the seventh straight month of year-over-year increases, according to a report from F.C. Tucker Co.
In the nine-county metropolitan area, sale agreements for existing homes climbed nearly 12 percent, to 1,541, in October, an increase of 163 from the same month last year.
In the nine-county metropolitan area, the number of home-construction permits filed last month increased 22 percent from the same month in 2010, while home-sale agreements rose 5.1 percent.
