Monday, January 25 2010
January is a great time to reflect on last year as well as plan for this year. 2009 was the year that residential real estate stopped its temporary decline in sales. Although our market saw fewer sales in the first six months of 2009 compared to 2008 (1879 vs. 2098) the second half of 2009 showed significant improvement. Units sold in the second half of 2009 improved 20.8% compared to the first half of the year and were up 7.6% compared to the second half of 2008. Our local market showed 4149 closed residential transactions representing almost $500 million in sales. Another encouraging statistic is the supply of houses currently for sale. In mid December, there were fewer than 3000 houses listed for sale. In August and September of 2007, there were over 3700 homes on the market. Even more importantly, the “months supply” (listed homes divided by number of monthly sales) declined over the course of 2009. Over the first six months of 2009, months supply averaged 10.19 with a peak of 15.1 months supply last January. The second half of the year averaged 8.3 months supply, a significant improvement. These numbers put us in a much better position for home sales than we were in a year ago and that is exactly what I believe will happen.
The extended and expanded Home Buyer Tax Credit will definitely help sales start this year much better than last year. I know I mentioned this credit last month but I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to start now if you are considering buying or selling this year. For sellers, your house has to be listed to expose it to this Spring’s buyers. For buyers, it is not unusual to spend some time looking for a home before signing a purchase agreement and buyers need to allow enough time to arrange financing and complete the closing.
As always the best place to look for homes is at FCTUCKEREMGE.COM “The Easiest Search On The Web”. I have some exciting things to share about my company in next month’s Market Watch and in the meantime call me with any of your real estate questions.
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