Surry Business

Even if no one put another house up for sale in the Piedmont Triad between now and Easter 2008, the present inventory of homes on the market might not be cleared before the Fourth of July.

Real-estate agents and brokers in the 12-county Piedmont Triad region, which includes Surry County, sold 2,636 existing single-family homes in the third quarter of 2007, 8.3 percent less than in the July-September period a year ago. The total also was down 6 percent from the second quarter 2007.

Meanwhile, the inventory of homes for sale keeps growing. On Sept. 30 there were 9.2 percent more than a year earlier, nearly 9,000 in all, and that’s 3.1 times the number sold in the preceding three months.

“At the current sales pace, it will take 9.3 months to exhaust the existing inventory,” according to the Triad Business Index monthly analysis from the Bryan School of Business & Economics in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Despite the surplus, prices did not seem to be softening. The average home sold in the third quarter brought 0.7 percent more than in the previous quarter. The average quality-adjusted price of an existing home in the Triad was $184,385.

Across the Piedmont Triad over the past year, average home prices have risen 2.0 percent in Greensboro, 2.5 percent in Forsyth County, and 0.3 percent in High Point, according to the Triad Multiple Listing Service. The number of homes sold has dropped 8.9 percent in Greensboro, 9.9 percent in Forsyth County, and 12.6 percent in High Point.

Triad MLS statistics for October, normally available by Nov. 10, have not been posted at this time. SurryBusiness.com will report the numbers as soon as they’re available.