BR-area homes sales dip

• By CHAD CALDER
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Mar 25, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:20 a.m.

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For the second month in a row, home sales in the Baton Rouge metro area came in below their 2005 levels, indicating a cooling market and the end of the post-Katrina housing bump.

And inventory figures show there are significantly more homes on the market, and on average they’re staying there  longer.

Realtors sold 582 homes in the eight-parish area in February, down 13 percent from the 671 in February 2007 and just under 591 homes sold that month in 2005. In January, they sold 493 homes, down 20 percent from 616 in January 2007 and a little less than the 514 sold that month in 2005.

The numbers came from the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listings Service, which the group says makes up about 85 percent of the market in East and West Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, East and West Feliciana, Iberville and Pointe Coupee parishes.

Sandy Daly, a broker with the Sherwood office of C.J. Brown Realtors, said that being where Baton Rouge’s real estate market was in 2005 isn’t a bad place to be.

“We’re just returning to a very normal, stable market,” she said.

Daly stopped short of calling it a buyer’s market, but said it is far more balanced than it has been since the August 2005 storm.

“I think we all would agree that we have increased inventory at this point — primarily in new construction — and it will take us time to work through that. But the other part, the resell market, we have property that is well-priced … and is selling like it did before Katrina.”

“I feel like we’re about back to that market,” said Mandy Benton, a broker with M.A. Allen & Associates, which sells primarily in Livingston Parish. “It’s steady, there’s still business, but I think the bubble’s gone.”

The association’s inventory figures show the market stayed at or below roughly five months worth of homes on the market since early 2005, but began rising in July. It spent the last quarter of the year at more than seven months worth of inventory on the market. In January, it was 10 months, though it settled at 8.4 months in February.

There were 4,893 homes on the market in the end of February, up 26 percent from the 3,884 on the market that month in 2005 and up 22 percent from February 2007.

The average number of days on the market in February was 97. That’s close to the 87-day period it was in February 2005, but significantly higher than the 71 days it was 12 months ago.

The total sales volume in February was considerably less than it was a year ago, down 15 percent to $111.9 million, but 24 percent higher than the $90.0 million in February 2005, likely reflecting the rise in home prices that took place after Hurricane Katrina.