Home sales down, prices up

On a recent crisp fall morning, Kathryn Bradford spent some time shopping -- for homes.

She and her real estate agent, Laura Ritter, first looked at a charming yellow farmhouse in Jackson. Then they spent a half-hour or so checking out a cozy, well-decorated home on East Rodney in Cape Girardeau, poking their way through the bathroom, spacious backyard and four bedrooms.

"I like it," Bradford announced after a few minutes. "I like the wood floors, and I'm an interior designer, so we'd like to get an older home that needs some work. They're a little less expensive that way."

This was Bradford's second trip from Cookeville, Tenn., to look for a house in the Cape Girardeau area. Her husband, Damon, who last year signed on as the football Redhawks' defensive coordinator at Southeast Missouri State University, is due back from National Guard duty in Iraq soon. She hopes to have a house picked by the time he gets back.

This is a busy time of year for home sales, as summer-time browsing transforms into a flurry of closings, according to several area real-estate companies.

And, depending on how you look at it, the numbers are holding their own. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 11, 619 previously owned homes -- which excludes new construction and includes homes at least 2 years old -- had been sold in Cape Girardeau County, according to the county's Multi-List Service Inc., which tracks such statistics.

That's down 6.5 percent from last year at this time, when 662 homes had been sold. But the average price for a home is up to $127,859, the service said, up from last year's $120,662, a gain of 5.5 percent.

In other words, the total valuation of home sales for Cape Girardeau County hasn't changed much. To date, the value of homes sold is $79.1 million as opposed to last year's $79.8 million.

The numbers are pretty simple, says Kerry Johnson, president of the Cape Girardeau County Board of Realtors and owner of Mossy Oak Properties.

"What that reflects is that the volume is about the same," he said. "We might have sold a few fewer homes, but the price of homes are up. It will all wash out."

He said that, in his mind, this year is every bit as good as last year.

"Worst-case scenario is we're holding our own," he said. "Me personally, every quarter I've had for the past five years is up significantly."

Still, the slight decline might be attributed to the fact that the market may be a bit saturated, he said.

"Over the past three or four years, people who have wanted homes have bought them," he said. "If they wanted to upsize, they have. We've had a really good growth spurt over the past four years. It might be tapering off a bit."

Local real-estate agent Thomas M. Meyer said his company is down about 3 percent, which includes commercial and residential sales. He said fall is usually a better time of year for them and hopes that a more brisk business will bring the numbers up.

"We close quite a few transactions in mid- to late fall," he said. "But we've been here long enough to come in and do what we do and things take care of themselves."

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Homes for sale

Numbers for single-family homes on the market as of Oct. 11

Cape Girardeau: 243

Jackson: 202

Cape Girardeau County: 62

Marble Hill: 30

Bollinger County: 72

Scott City: 38

Scott County: 37

Perryville: 79

Perry County: 40

Stoddard County: 14

Other: 15

* Median price for an existing home under $200,000: $127,859

Figures do not include "for sale by owner" homes, which are not tracked by the real-estate industry.

Source: Cape Girardeau County Multi-List Service, Inc.