El Paso home sales looking up after two-year decline

​​​​EL PASO – El Paso County new home sales increased last year
for the first time in two years while sales of used homes chugged along with
another double-digit increase.

"We saw a pick up at the end of last year," which
has continued into the early part of 2016, said Ray Adauto, Executive Vice President
of the El Paso Association of Builders, the local home builders group.

El Paso new home sales increased 6.7 percent in 2015 after
two previous years of declines. But the gain was well behind the national 14.6
percent increase in new home sales reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

El Paso resale home sales increased 10.1 percent
last year—ahead of the national 7 percent increase in single-family home sales
reported by the National Association of Realtors.

Last year, 4,589 resale homes were sold in El Paso County—an
increase of 420 homes from 2014, the Realtors association reported.

Home builders sold 156 more homes in 2015 for a total of
2,477 new home sales last year, according to Metrostudy data compiled by Desert
View Homes, an El Paso home builder.

The number of new-home construction permits and construction
notices increased 15.5 percent in 2015 to 2,819. That number includes 464
home-construction notices filed by builders with El Paso County for
unincorporated county areas.

Classic American Homes led El Paso home builders
with 332 new home sales—an increase of 105, or up 46.3 percent from 2014.