According to a recent report by the Lancaster County Association of Realtors® (LCAR), the 5,592 homes sold in 2006 ties with 2001 as the fifth busiest year for local home sales. The record is 6,453 sales in 2005 followed by 6,160 in 2004, 5,956 in 2002 and 5,801 in 2003.
The $186,508 average sale price for 2006 sets a yearly record and is a 3.4 percent increase over the $180,460 price tag in 2005. “The numbers clearly reveal a slower year for real estate in 2006; however, when you look at the year from a historic perspective, it was still very strong,” said LCAR president, Rich Heslin. “Logic says that you can’t continue to break the record year in and year out; plus the overall health of the real estate market is better now that things have normalized without the frenzy we saw in 2004 and 2005 .”

The 1,375 homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2006 is a 6.1 percent decrease from the fourth quarter 2005 mark of 1,465. This year there were 502 sales in October, 433 in November and 440 in December; this compares to 504 in October of 2005, 502 in November and 459 in
December. The five-year average of fourth quarter home sales is 1,451. The average sale price for the fourth quarter of 2006 is $187,172, a 0.7 percent decrease from the $188,474 sale price in the fourth quarter of 2005. The five-year average fourth quarter sale price is $169,019, and the average fourth quarter sale price ten years ago was $113,979. For the fourth quarter, there was a 8.7 percent increase in the number of new listings from 1,615 in 2005 to 1,756 in 2006. The five-year average of new listings for the fourth quarter is 1,595.

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