Pittsburgh Home Sales May Buck Trend

National existing home sales numbers are to be released Friday and they are predicted to show a soft housing market. President of Pittsburgh based Howard Hanna Real Estate, Hoddy Hanna, says that is not the case in the Pittsburgh region. He says home sales remain strong with values running one percent above last year and inventories five percent below last year. That means homes, in general, are not languishing on the market as they are in other regions. Hanna says a recent report listed the Pittsburgh region as having a 99% chance of seeing rising home vales over the next two years. That compares to some cities with a 90% expectation for homes to lose values in the same time frame. Hanna says those numbers coupled with lower than national average unemployment rates fro southwestern PA should lead to stable home sales market for the remainder of the year. He calls the region “steady Eddie” because it did not see the huge run ups in price seen elsewhere and is not seeing the big drops reported in places like California.