Real Estate by the Numbers: Week of February 19-25

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A quick rundown of the important real estate news from the week of February 19-25, by the numbers:

5.6 Million – Number of  existing homes sold in January 2011 on an annualized basis. That pace represents a 2.7% increase from December and a 5.3% increase from January 2010.

$158,000 – Median home price in January 2011, which is down 3% from January 2010.

284,000 – Number of  new homes sold in January 2011 on an annualized seasonal adjusted basis. That pace represnets a 12.6% decrease from December’s pace of 325,000 new homes.

15% to 20% – Percentage to which home sales have been overstated in recent years by the National Association of Realtors according to Core Logic

37% – Percentage of homes purchased in January 2011 that were foreclosures. Furthermore, 32% of homes purchases were all-cash. These figures suggest that investors, to a large extent, are driving the current market.

73.9% – Percentage of homes sold in the 4th quarter of 2010 that were affordable for families earning $64,400, the national median income. It’s the highest percentage of affordable homes since the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index starting tracking the figure.

9.4% – Percentage vacancy in apartments in the 4th quarter of 2011. It’s the lowest vacancy for apartments since 2007 and a drop from the previous quarter’s 10.3% vacancy. With vacancy falling, it’s predicted that rents will rise 4.5% in 2011.

27.96% – Percentage return in 2010 on the FTSE NAREIT Equity REIT Index. It’s the second year in a row that REITs (Real Estate Investments Trusts) have performed well, as the index returned 27.99% in 2009. The return on the REIT index compares favorably to the returns on the NASDAQ Composite and the S & P 500 Index, which had returns of 16.91% and 15.06% respectively in 2010.

18% – Percentage increase year-over-year in December 2010 in residential remodels. It’s the fourteenth straight month remodeling activity has increased.

$36 billion – Total amount of economic aid that the Saudi Arabian government has announced, with a large percentage earmarked towards interest free loans for building and buying homes.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.