Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 3, 1992 TAG: 9203030066
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Home sales in February jumped 61 percent over the same month last year, rising to 286 homes sold from 178, according to the Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors' multiple listing service. The latest number was up 17 percent over January, when 245 sales were closed.
"We are thrilled," Laura Benjamin, executive vice president of the Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors, said Monday. "It was the best month in 18 months, and it was a short month at that."
Realtors credited the strong upturn to the lowest interest rates in years, unseasonably mild weather and improving consumer confidence.
Slight upticks in interest rates in mid-February also pushed some fence-sitters to conclude, " `Let's do it before it's too late,' " said Tim Garrison, general manager for Boone & Co.
"It's that time of year," said R. Lee Mastin, a principal in Mastin, Kirkland, Bolling Inc., a Roanoke real estate firm. "When you have `that time of year' in conjunction with very low interest rates, it makes things happen. And the mind set is you have the recession coming to an end."
Warm, sunny weekends help, too, drawing would-be buyers out for open houses and neighborhood cruising.
In statistics added this week to the regional economic indicators:
New business licenses issued last month in Roanoke and Roanoke County kept pace with the month before, figures show. Officials issued 158 licenses in February, only two shy of the 160 issued in the same month last year. In January, 191 licenses were issued.
The Wheat First index of 20 regional stocks continued to creep upward, closing February at 179.48 points, up 7 percent from January and up 21.6 percent from February last year. Bank and furniture stocks were up, as was USAir.
Norfolk Southern Corp. loaded 20,312 coal hoppers for the week ended Sunday, 1,460 more than the railroad loaded in the same week last year for a jump of 8 percent.
by CNB