Print edition: 
Kansas home sales fell by 35.7 percent in July over the same period a year ago, according to figures released Wednesday by the Kansas Association of Realtors.
Sales totaled 2,155 units in July, down from 3,349 units in 2009, a decline analysts call predictable given the end of the federal homebuyer tax credit program.
The local figures come on the heels of national numbers showing a 25 percent decline in July, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Brian Jones, president of KAR and a Pittsburg broker, said in a news release that the sales decline was anticipated with the passing of contract and initial closing deadlines for the federal tax credits.
Stan Longhofer, the director of Wichita State's Center for Real Estate, called the response to the national decline an overreaction.
"What has people overreacting to those numbers is that July is a month when sales traditionally go up," he said.
"You wait until you're out of school, you begin looking and you buy at the end of May or in June. July is the month you get it closed."
Instead, many deals were fast-tracked to meet the original June 30 deadline to qualify for either $6,500 or $8,000 in tax credits, Longhofer said.
The deadline was later extended to the end of September, to handle a backup of sales contracts.
The statewide average sales price also declined in July, to $164,744 from $180,081 a year earlier.
Home inventories rose statewide, to 19,768 active listings at the end of the month, or 9.2 months of inventory.
That seems like a high figure, but Longhofer said the listings are skewed by the end of the tax credit program.
"As far as the south-central Kansas figures go, active listings are higher than they were a year ago, but they're lower than they were two or three years ago in the same market," Longhofer said.
"The reason that the months' supply jumped isn't because people dumped homes on the market. It's up because sales dropped."
The true litmus test for the state of the Wichita housing market is coming, Longhofer said, in September and October.
"This number is misleading," he said. "You cannot say a thing right now about any underlying trends in our market.
"Wait until we get the September and October sales figures, and if you see substantial declines then, that's an indication of underlying weakness in our market.
"But this drop in July is due entirely to people getting in under the tax credits."
