Good News. You don’t really need to define this term, but you do have to gauge how high you’re actually jumping up & down!!! This is the time of year that homes for sale “should” be flying off the shelf. We have seen continued improvement in the stock market, even with “big bombs” like Chrysler filing bankruptcy. The Fed has made a wise move and left interest rates alone. With the national average 30-year fixed rate loan running at 4.94%, and, what’s really good in the loan department is jumbo loans are down, with 5-year adjustable rates at 5.21%.
Thirteen homes were sold in Anacortes in April, compared to 21 homes sold in April a year ago. Fourteen homes were sold here in March.
The average price for homes sold was $332,854 down over $100,000 from April of 2008, when the average price was $451,369. That’s a huge 25% drop. Looking at the data, you realize there was only one sale above $434,000, (there were six in April ‘08). This actually reflects the dominance of the under-$300,000 sales.
(Note: last month’s article used “median price” or the mid point between high and low, with the small numbers of sales; this can be greatly skewed month to month. I have switched to “average price” which I feel is a better indicator)
There are 307 homes currently listed for sale in Anacortes, a bit high for this time of year.
The “good news” I spoke of above is that new pending sales are up, 13 in April, and what’s even better is that over one-half of them are over $300,000. Average pending price is $430,000 up hugely from the $326,000 in March. This is attributed to a small flood of retirees that have been waiting in the wings and a few move-up buyers that have benefited from the recent sales in the lower ranges. Unfortunately this is still somewhat meager, as we saw over 30 pending sales at the same time last year.
Another positive note; I was talking with an investor down in the San Francisco Bay area and he said, as of last fall their prices had been beaten down over 50% by foreclosures, But since then there has been about a 20% increase in sale prices. He believes that “late last fall” was their market bottom.
Are we at the bottom? We definitely are seeing houses priced right, in the under $300,000 price range, selling, and as that innovatory shrinks, it will put pressure up the ladder. The list-to-sell ratio, especially in the higher end, has gotten wider and the buyers still are expecting to see a discount off the list price, but, if you’re thinking about buying, inventory is up and rates are the lowest I’ve ever seen.
If you want to sell, and you’re in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, I wouldn’t wait to get out there. First-time buyers with the $8,000 tax break are currently driving the market. On the other hand, if you don’t need to sell and you’re somewhere north of that price range, I would not encourage you to add to an already saturated market.
But, don’t lose faith, there still is and will be a lot of pressure on Anacortes housing landscape, as we live in a beautiful place and there not printing any more of it!
Curt Oppel is with John L Scott Real Estate Anacortes.