Lafayette-area home sales edged up in 2024 as prices fell

Home sales across the Lafayette metropolitan area rose modestly in 2024 while the average sale price fell, according to HUD’s analysis dated January 1, 2025. The improvement followed a much steeper drop in transactions the year before.

HUD reported 4,650 homes sold during 2024, a 3 percent increase from 2023, using Zonda data. In 2023, sales had fallen 29 percent to 4,525. The report put the 2024 average sale price at $247,800, down 5 percent from the previous year. These are completed-sale figures for the period, not asking prices on today’s listings. HUD, page 12.

The report covers Acadia, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Martin and Vermilion parishes together. Its totals cannot be assigned to Lafayette city alone, and they do not show that every parish moved in the same direction.

More homes were available relative to the pace of sales. HUD’s January 2025 report, citing Redfin, put December 2024 inventory at 4.4 months of supply, compared with 4.2 months in December 2023 and 2.7 months in December 2022.

HUD described the regional sales market as slightly soft. It estimated a sales vacancy rate of 1.9 percent as of January 1, 2025, compared with 1.4 percent in April 2020. That measure concerns housing available for sale, separate from the apartment vacancy figures used to describe the rental market.

The modest sales gain also remained below a recent high. HUD’s report identified a peak of 7,250 sales during the 12 months ending March 2022 and said rising mortgage rates had dampened demand.

Construction held steadier. On page 14, HUD reported an average of 2,050 single-family homes permitted in each of 2023 and 2024. Its analysis notes that rural-parish permits often cover custom-built homes, so permits and recorded new-home sales do not describe exactly the same activity.

That leaves a mixed picture at the start of 2025: sales recovering slowly, lower average prices, more inventory and a steady pace of permits.