Oklahoma City
outperformed – but just barely – the state as a whole in average home values in 2008.
The metro area’s average sales price for the year was $151,700, an increase of 0.84 percent compared with 2007, according to the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors.
Statewide, the average sales price for the year was $149,482, an increase of 0.52 percent compared with 2007.
Home sales dropped significantly last year – 11.4 percent in
Oklahoma City
, where 17,405 existing homes changed hands, and 9.4 percent for the state, where 49,269 houses sold.
However, even with the drop in sales,
Oklahoma
fared much better than most of the country. Realtors saw good news in the numbers.
The metro area, like the state as a whole, took major hits in the last three months of the year. This was after the extent of the credit crisis and its effect on the stock market and the economy as a whole started to become known, said July Lindsay, president of the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors.
Statewide, it took the flood of national news about the national housing crisis, which lasted all year, combined with the fourth-quarter disaster on Wall Street, steep job losses and historic, controversial actions by the federal government to finally wallop housing in Oklahoma, said Mike Craddock, president of the Oklahoma Association of Realtors. |
