Oct

14

September 2008 Market Review

Filed Under Monthly Stats 

September has been a good and bad month for real estate.  What I mean by this is that the Single Family market has recovered some in the absorption rate to 4.7 months of invetory from 5+ last month, and the Condo market has gone over 6 months of invetory.  For single family, this is a good thing… what I mean is that it is now a strong buyers market and prices should not decrease and such great speed now.  But rather float around where they are currently at.  For Condos on the other hand, the prices will probably continue to drop much quicker.

The Condo median price has decreased 11.67% from September 2007 to $265,000 where as the Single Family homes median price has only decreased 6.06% to $395,000 from the same time last year.

Advice to Sellers:

My advice to sellers continues to be to emphasize the critical importance of pricing your property for the new reality. It is crucial to get ahead of the decreasing prices in this market. Most sellers instinctively want to be on the higher side when choosing a list price - it is natural to do so. To be honest, it is also a mistake in this market. If anything you want to be on the aggressive side with respect to list price in this market.  There are many reasons for this, but the biggest one is competition.  You as a seller will have a number of homes that you are competing against, and you need to make your home stand out to the potential buyer.  Most buyers the we work with day in and day out are looking for one thing… a good deal.  It is human nature to want to get a deal, and rightly so.  We all want a deal!  As I have talked about before as a seller, you need to put your foot in the shoe of a buyer, and offer what they are looking for.

Advice to Buyers:

BUY… Right now there are great opportunities to purchase.  With the banks starting to tighten their lending, and prices in single family homes starting to stabilize, but still remaining a strong buyers market, there are some great deals to be had.  If you are looking in the Condo market, prices will most likely continue to fall further, as the number of new condos coming on the market via builders, and speculative buyers will rise and in turn create a further downturn in the prices in condos.

Below are a couple graphs that you may find usefull.

Comments

Leave a Reply