The Buffalo Niagara real estate market closed 2005 on a down note with sales slipping nearly 5 percent in December from the previous year.

The Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors reported single-family home sales for the month totaled 521. That figure is down from 547 for December 2004 and the lowest tally for that month since 2002 when 515 transactions were conducted.

For the year, BNAR did report a 1.4 percent increase in units sold to 10,482 -- the highest figure on record since 1994, and ahead of 10,331 for all of 2004.

Median prices slipped in December, falling to $91,500, or 1.6 percent compared to $93,000 a year earlier. For all of 2005 the median price of a home was $95,524, 3.3 percent better than the previous high of $92,513 in 2004.

The average price of a transaction was $118,573 last month, 9.3 percent higher than $108,470 in December 2004.

Total dollar volume for the month added up to $61.8 million, topping $59.3 million the previous year and a gain of 4.2 percent. The total dollar volume for the market in 2005 was $1.25 billion, up 5 percent from 1.19 billion in 2004.

December's new listings of 847 was nearly 19 percent better than last year's count of 713 but the lowest for any month in 2005.

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