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Square Footage of Single-Family Homes.

This number crunch article focuses on the square footage of single-family homes that have sold in the SWMLS Market Area since 2007. In order to create an even comparison, the data that will be used are home sales from January 1st through September 30th for 2007, 2008, and 2009. The three market trends used for comparison are number of sales, sale price, and days on market.

Definition of Terms

CDOM – Cumulative Days on Market – This is the total days that a property has been listed in on the market in the MLS system, taking into account all the previous listings for that address that were listed in a consecutive 30 day period.

Figure 1: Chart of Square Footage Ranges Used in this Data Analysis


Analysis of the Data
It is no surprise to see that homes with a smaller square footage sell faster and sell for less than homes with more square footange. For 2007-2009, the data chart shows that as the square footage of a home increases, the average sale price and cumulative days on market increases as well. Figure2, below, shows the year-to-date home sales for single-family homes and their corresponding CDOM.

Figure 2: CDOM of 2009 YTD Sales by Square Footage

From 2007 to present, the top selling square footage range includes homes with a square footage between 1,000 and 1,999. The current market inventory of single-family homes for sale also indicates that this square footage range consistently makes up the bulk of the MLS listing inventory. On the day this report was created (9/19/09) single-family homes with a square footage between 1,000 and 1,999 made up 42.12% of the active inventory.

Decline in Sale Prices
Several of the 2008-2009 monthly and quarterly market reports posted by SWMLS/GAAR indicate a decline in home sale prices from the previous year. This decline is also evident in the chart of sales by square footage. In four of the square footage categories that were analyzed (0-999, 1000-1999, 2000-2999 and 3000-3999) the average sale price continued to decline from 2007 to 2009. When comparing changes in sale price from 2007 to 2008, the chart shows that homes between 1,000 and 1,999 square feet had the smallest decrease (-3.71%). From 2008 to 2009 homes with less than 999 square feet had the smallest decrease in average sales price (-5.46%).

Figure 3: Chart of Active and Closed Listings by Square Foot


Source: Southwest MLS, Inc. Information deemed reliable not guaranteed.