November provided good news in several forms for metro Atlanta's troubled housing market, including the first year-over-year increase in the price of existing single-family homes sold since at least 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors. The 2 percent increase for the region, from $126,300 in November 2008 to $129,300 last month, bucked the national trend, which saw a 4 percent drop in sales price.

Steve Palm, president of Marietta-based SmartNumbers, called the price increase "the kind of improvement that you want to see. And there’s more good news: Locally, price was flat for all housing types sold in November,” Palm said. Another area that saw marked improvement was sales, which improved 33 percent over November 2008, according to the Realtors’ data. Palm said closings in metro Atlanta on new and existing single-family homes set a record for the greatest year-to-year percentage increase since 1995, when record keeping began.“Our housing industry had been down for 13 consecutive quarters, but it is a very good bet that fourth quarter 2009 will have a year-to-year increase for all single-family closings,” he said.

Nationally, the price of an existing single-family home for November was $171,900, down from 179,900 the year before. Though the November national median price of an existing single-family home has yet to catch up with that of a year ago, sales have skyrocketed. The number of homes sold improved 42 percent over November 2008, the data revealed. Adding in townhomes, condos and co-ops, existing home sales improved 44 percent over the same period last year. The boost in sales is largely attributed to the original deadline of the federal tax credit for first-time home buyers, industry analysts say. That program, which provided an $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers, was set to expire in November. It has since been extended to June 30 and now includes a $6,500 credit for repeat buyers. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors association, said the rise was expected. He also expects to see a drop in sales before spring. “We expect a temporary sales drop while buying activity ramps up for another surge in the spring when buyers take advantage of the expanded tax credit, which hopefully will take us into a self-sustaining market in the second half of 2010,” he said in a news release.

A survey conducted by the Realtors association shows first-time buyers purchased 51 percent of homes in November, a slight improvement from 50 percent of transactions in October, the release said. Tax appraisers have not kept up with the collapse in property values in parts of metro Atlanta, which means many homeowners are being taxed on value their property no longer holds. See “Property Tax Meltdown” at www.ajc.com/news/.