Capital Area Realtors president Mike Buscher says November’s housing numbers are a mixed bag.

Home sales were down but the value of a house in the Springfield area was up.  Buscher says the market still shows improvement.

“The median price is going up as compared to last year.  Part of that has to do with the tightness of the inventory and supply and demand comes in to play a little bit,” says Buscher.  “Also the number of foreclosures has significantly been on the downward slide in the last few months.”

Buscher says the number of homes sold slid 16%  from a year ago but attributes much of that to the weather. The median price of a home in Springfield in November was $117,500, a 5.4% increase.

Home sales to date this year are lagging behind last year.

Capital Area Association of Realtors president Steve Myers says this past winter’s weather is the main reason behind the decrease in sales.

“We are still working our way through the challenges of the winter. January and February were very lean on sales. When it is 8 below zero and there is 8-inches of snow on the ground, people don’t buy residential real estate,” according to Myers.

Myers says May 2014 sales numbers are up over last May, though. He says a particularly low inventory of housing stock is making the area a “seller’s market,” resulting in a nearly 2-percent decline in the median price for a single-family home compared to a year ago.