How's The Market?

Okay then.  I, and agents in my office, have been feeling the market take off; but for too few houses on the market.  The market stats, released today by RMLS support this feeling.

Year over year, both pending and closed sales are up from February 2011 to February 2012.  Closed sales are up 17.5% and pending sales are up 32.5%.  At the same time, new listings dropped 13.6%  Between January 2012 and February 2012, closed sales grew 3.1% and pending sales grew 15.7%.  So we have been busier compared both to last month and last year, but with fewer choices for our buyer clients.

This increase in activity is slowly being reflected in prices.  The average sales price increased from February 2011 to February 2012 by 4.3% to $255,100.   This is a month to month increase of 2.4%.  Are prices going to take off?  I don't think so.  Though we may see some slight gains in housing prices over the coming months.

Our total market time is hovering around 138 days as compared to last February's total market time of 177 days.  This represents a 22% decrease in market time, so things are moving more quickly.

Recovery?  I don't know.  We do expect to see an increase in foreclosed properties hitting the market as a result of the robo-signing settlement reached recently.  We do expect to see some banks accelerating the rate at which they approve short sales and an increase in the % of short sales , also as a result of the robo-signing settlement.  Inman News did an interesting article on this.

Have questions about your house or neighborhood?  Thinking of buying or selling?  Give me a call: 503-312-8038