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St. Louis housing market continues trend of modest gains, say local Realtors

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, June 18, 2012 - The St. Louis housing market continues to record modest gains in home sales, the St. Louis Association of Realtors said today.

Some highlights from the report:

  • Sales of single-family homes and condominiums totaled 1,521 in May in St. Louis and St. Louis County, up 22 percent from April and also up 22 percent from a year ago.
  • The average home price of $182,197 was 2 percent higher than in April, but flat compared to the same time period last year. 
  • May’s median price of $140,000 was up 4.8 percent from the May 2011 median price of $133,600. (The median is a typical market price where half of the homes sold for more, half sold for less.) 
  • May was the fifth consecutive month of improvement.

"The St. Louis housing market continues to show improvement, due in part to increased consumer confidence, historically low interest rates and affordable home prices,” Glenn Vatterott, president of the Realtors association, said in the report.
Vatterott told the Beacon in May that he believes the housing market might finally be in recovery mode.

Mary Delach Leonard is a veteran journalist who joined the St. Louis Beacon staff in April 2008 after a 17-year career at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she was a reporter and an editor in the features section. Her work has been cited for awards by the Missouri Associated Press Managing Editors, the Missouri Press Association and the Illinois Press Association. In 2010, the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis honored her with a Spirit of Justice Award in recognition of her work on the housing crisis. Leonard began her newspaper career at the Belleville News-Democrat after earning a degree in mass communications from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, where she now serves as an adjunct faculty member. She is partial to pomeranians and Cardinals.