Is Germantown seeing the market changing? Yes - a drop of almost 40% of inventory since the beginning of the year.
Want some good news for a change? There are currently 191 homes under contract in Germantown, during the same period in 2004 there were only 149 homes under contract. These are incredible numbers considering all that has been going on lately, however, admittedly a very large number of these are foreclosed homes.
What you can take from this is the following, call/email all the folks you know that don't currently own a home and tell them that the market is getting much better and the boat could be leaving port soon (in passing you could also mention the rates are only 5% fixed and they only need to have 3 1/2% total cash to buy).
If you have followed my rating system (aka the Limejuicer Rating System) explained in past blogs it is now serving a purpose for which it wasn't originally intended. In brief the system analyses all properties on the market according to value, seller motivation, location, and condition providing both the consumer and the realtor a more accurate assessment of available properties. Well during the lengthy process of development, data entry, thousands of house previews/ratings, tweaking, learning and re-learning a number of unforeseen happenings occured. In future blogs I will explain them all, but for now one of these happenings is the system's uncanny ability to predict within a 7 day period a properties time on the market. At first I wasn't necessary sure what I was seeing, but the more I tested, retested and retested the numbers came together.
So a seller no longer needs to be concerned as to time on the market, the systems knows it and the buyer now also knows all the best properties on the market...Period....
4 comments:
This truly is good news.
Thanks so much for not only keeping a watchful eye (which seems an understatement) on the local market, but for bringing this information forward to the community.
One of the big fears that's being pushed and pushed and pushed on us is that sales of foreclosure are going to devastate all of our property values...
can you comment on the reality of this, particularly in our own local area?
thanks-
MJZ
The reality of foreclosures is here to stay at least for the next three to four quarters. Have they contributed to our depreciation and will they continue contribute, the answer is yes.
For the past year we have depreciated 1.2% to 1.4% on a monthly basis. However with the inventory numbers declining these percentages should lessen quite quickly.
If the "powers to be" were to look at how things worked at the ground level they would realize that some of their decisions aren't in the best interest of the public and in fact they have shot themselves in the foot. A prime example is Freddie Mac's recent announcement of agent bonuses on all their properties. These bonuses however nice to the agent community do not necessarily serve the intended purpose, being to sell their homes quicker.
This bonus money would be better utilized in the landscaping and general cleaning of their foreclosed homes. One the homes would show better, time on the market would lessen, two it would put to work thousands of people across the country.
Great information Lawrence thank you! The pulse you have on our community will surely go a long way in determining when is the best time to buy or sell for all of us. Can your statistics be narrowed down to individual communities?
Oddly enough the rating system can rate individual communities according to value and average location. If one were to analyze further one could highlight the future hot subdivisions especially when it is compared to pricing trends. With this information future sellers of these communities would know the best time to put their homes on the market and maximize their profit.
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