GoodLife Team

The Market Jumped 10% in One Month - Or Did It?

Single Family Monthly Graphs

Note to readers: The Wise Assessment is posted every month. We post our stats later that other real estate companies because we want the most accurate numbers available…and this makes them worth waiting for! Other agents simply copy and paste graphs that they get from other sources and offer no opinions to the marketplace conditions. We track data in house and compare the market on a whole to what we produce internally in order to produce an opinion of the data and give our thoughts of what we are personally experiencing as a top company in Austin.

Keep reading for the written Wise Assessment and/or listen to our interpretations on our latest VLOG:

Overall Market Summary Report

The Wise Assessment

SELLERS: The number of single-family homes that were available for sale took a nose-dive at the end of 2009. The average sales price sky-rocketed to a never-before seen level of $261,000. While this may seem to be an excellent indicator of a recovering market and proof that now is a great time to sell for a very high price, we must first investigate the finer details and statistics before making interpretations. See the Average Sales Price graph and narrative below for our Wise Assessment on this phenomenon.

Is This A Good Time To Sell? We are meeting with clients on a daily basis who are asking this specific question. A general rule to follow when determining if now is a good time to sell:

1. Move-up: if you are selling a home and looking to ‘move-up’ or buy a more expensive home, the very best time to do this is when the market is down (like now)
2. Move-down: if you are selling a home and looking to ‘move-down’ or buy a less expensive home, the very best time to do this is when the market is hot (not now)

While this is a good general rule to follow, your specific circumstances and needs must be considered before making a decision.

BUYERS:

Interest rates remain low.

Home prices remain low.

Therefore, your monthly payment will be lower now than when either or both interest rates and home prices increase.

I assess that, even though it appears that home prices are increasing (see the interpretation below), the reality is that this is still a very good time to buy…especially before prices and interest rates begin to creep up.

Average Sales Price

“WOW! My home is now worth $50,000 more than it was last month!” While the graph alone would indicate your home is worth 10% more now than it was in November, this is not the whole story. Let’s examine:

• This past fall the government offered 8,000 reasons (in dollars) for first-time home buyers (property virgins) to buy homes before December
• This incentive prompted a large number of virgins to buy homes, which drove the average price down while, at the same time, supply and demand increased
• In December, there was a significant decline in the number of virgin buyers, which drove prices back up
• Also in December, there was a higher percentage of homes sold in the $300K-$1M price range than in previous months

These facts would indicate that we have experienced an anomoly in the market, and your home is likely not worth more today than in November. But, this begs the question:

• Is your home worth more now? The only way to make an assessment of value for your home is to investigate your specific home and see how it compares and competes in the current market.

Sales Closed by Month (Demand)

The number of sales in December followed the seasonal cycle of sales in Real Estate in Austin. While we did experience an unusual number of home sales in September and October of 2009 because of the Virgin tax credit, the market returned to its normal operating procedures once the original credit was scheduled to expire. Barring any disaster, the number of sales in Austin should coincide with the temperature increases….stay tuned and check that weather report!

Active Listings (Supply)

Again, we are following the cyclical trend of there being fewer homes available for sale in the fall and winter than in the spring and summer. We did notice, however, that the number of home sales increased in the fall over the previous years, which caused the supply to remain low.

We are anticipating the inventory to increase drastically in early 2010, as the graph reflects for the previous years, so be on the look out for a greater number of homes on the market in the coming months.

Offers of Help

• What Is My Home Worth? Want to get a good idea of what your home is worth … and find out right now online? Check out our Market Snapshot for an analysis of the value of your Austin home.
• What Is That Home Worth? “Stop the car, honey … look at that house. I wonder what it’s worth?!?” Does this ever happen to you? Ever wonder what that house is worth? Find out the value of that Austin neighborhood or home.
• What do I need to know before I sell? Typically when a home does not sell, there is one reason…and it isn’t price. We invite you to look at several key factors to consider before selling your home. Visit One Reason for more information.

BTW, We do have very specific data for every price range and area of town. Want specific data pertaining to your neighborhood or your own home? We have it! Please let us know if you would like a neighborhood-specific analysis by emailing us at experience@goodlifeteam.com or calling us at 512.892.9473.

The data provided to create these graphs are available to you by FREE subscription to our monthly update service.  Please email us experience@goodlifeteam.com to receive your monthly update. Or, catch the wave and follow @GoodLifeTeam on Twitter.

experience@goodlifeteam.com| 512.892.9473  | www.goodlifeteam.com

Tags: Market Statistics

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 10:35 am and is filed under Market Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.