January Market Report!
Real Estate Update with Cheryl Marlow
770 KKOB AM’s Residential Real Estate Specialist!
The January report released from the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors is showing us some promising things! First off, and arguably the most important is that pending home sales are up! They’re up 55% from December and 31% from January of ’09. This is wonderful news for the overall market and for homeowners who have their homes up for sale!
Unfortunately on the not so bright side, January saw a dramatic decline in closed sales from December. In January we saw 392 homes and condos closed compared to 592 in December. I’m certainly hoping that was a seasonal adjustment, as typically January and February are the slowest months. The good news is that the number reflects an almost 12% increase of closings from January of ’09. This, along with the pending numbers validates our belief that the market will see month to month improvements from last year!
Some people might wonder why all of these pending sales don’t always translate into closed sales. Well let me tell you why. While you have deals that fall through here and there, that’s not usually the reason that sales won’t close within the same month that they go pending. For instance, homes that go pending in February won’t always make it to the closing table until March or even April. There are inspections, obtaining the mortgage and other things that have to be done in order to get a home closed. So, we should always take all of these into perspective when looking at the pending and closed numbers that we get for each month.
I absolutely think that some of these home sales are a direct result of the extended tax credit. The average sales price of homes that closed in January was $205,000 and of the 392 homes closed almost 80% of those were under $250,000. This tells us that the tax credit of $6,500 for repeat home buyers and $8,000 for first time home buyers is definitely influencing buyers in the affordable price ranges and getting people out there to take advantage of this great opportunity. These sales benefit all price ranges due to the domino effect. The $200,000 home seller becomes a $300,000 home buyer and it dominos from there.
I really, truly believe that the market will be especially active between now and the end of April. So, if you are thinking of selling, don’t wait until it’s too late!!
Cheryl Marlow
Comments on this entry are closed.