Alabama home sales rise 15.4 percent in April
Birmingham News – May 23
Home sales across Alabama totaled 3,497 last month, a 15.4 percent improvement from a year ago. Last month’s average selling price was $143,324, up 3 percent from April 2011, while the median price was flat at $121,310, according to data from the Alabama Center for Real Estate at the University of Alabama.
There was a caveat in the sales results, Grayson Glaze, ACRE’s executive director, said. ACRE estimates that about 150 home sales that were scheduled to close in April 2011 were unable to do on the 27th through the 30th of that month because of the deadly tornado outbreak in the state. Many of those transactions were pushed into May while some of the homes were destroyed, making those sales null and void, he said. “But for the events of April 27th, the comparative figure in April 2011 would have been greater and thus the percent growth from April 2012 to April 2011 lower – we calculate it at roughly 10 percent,” Glaze said in a statement. “This is still significant progress for our statewide real estate market and consistent with our 2012 forecasts.”
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – May 22
WLTZ-NBC (Columbus, Ga.) – May 22
Nine National Merit Scholars named
Times of Northwest Indiana (Crown Point, Ind.) – May 23
Nine local students have been named winners of the National Merit Scholarship award. Officials of each sponsor college selected scholarship winners who plan to attend their institution from among finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program. The awards range from $500 to $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study. The students are: Sean Ryan Miller, Chesterton High School, medicine, University of Alabama…Jonathan D. Vincent, of Valparaiso, Chesterton High School, engineering, University of Alabama.