If I could pass one message on to buyers or sellers it would be to look at each house as an individual and not let your judgement be clouded by preconceived perceptions of the market. For example, we were working with a buyer recently who was convinced that it was a buyers market and that there was no rush to put an offer in on a unique house that they really wanted. Even when we told them that there was another offer in play, but not accepted, they chose to not act. Then, when the first offer was accepted they were quite surprised and upset that the house had gone to someone else. They told us that if they thought the other offer was going to be accepted they would have acted.
The moral of the story is that the market is picking up speed rapidly and that it is not the complete buyers market that buyers want to think it is. Yes, many of the homes for sale are overpriced and need a reduction. But, at the same time, many of the homes are very well priced by savvy sellers and they will sell quickly, quite close to their asking price. If you want to be successful, you will do best to close your ears to the panic being spread by the media and evaluate each listing on its merit.
Here are the statistics from this morning. The house market continues to pick up speed and is almost back to last years levels. Considering how low we started the season, this is quite surprising! The volume of sales is now only down 2% from this point last year with pricing down 5%. Yes, you will need to price your home lower than you would have last year, but with so many buyers in the market, with the right price you are very likely to find a buyer.
The condo market is picking up speed as well, but does seem to have slowed down recently. In fact, the stats are a little worse this week than last week. I do not know yet if this market segment has peaked, so we will have to keep a close eye on it in the coming weeks.
Over the last 30 days, 250 single family houses were sold, up by 14 houses from last week. The median price is up $4,000 to $524,500. The average house was on the market for 36 days.
In the same time period, 123 condos were sold, the same number as reported last week. The median price is down $7,500 to $264,000. The average condo was on the market for 57 days.
There are now 1,941 houses for sale, up by 49 from last week. Condo inventory has risen by 6 to 930 suites.
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