It’s been a weird June & July for the Dubuque area real estate market. Granted, homes are being bought and sold each and every day, but we certainly are not doing so at a typical level for the summer selling season. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this is partly due to the expirataion of the home buyer tax credit.
Courtsey of AP & FICO.com
I’ve droned on and on and on about the tax credit and how I personally felt it didn’t do anything to “stimulate” home sales except in the way that it stole sales from the future to jack up the numbers in the here and now. I seriously doubt anybody came to the grand conclusiuon that the existence of the tax credit was a good reason to jump into the market. It simply moved up timelines for folks who were going to be buying anyway. “I was going to wait to buy a home in Spring 2011, but I sure didn’t want to miss out of the free money from Uncle Sam!”
All that said, I’m seeing that two other big factors continue to drag the market through the mud. General gloominess by the general public about the jobs outlook and the economy as a whole is one. I could stir up a political hornet’s nest by addressing that one itself The other is the much higher credit standards the banks and credit unions are now adhering to.
Credit score of 580 to 619? Fuhgeddaboudit! You’ve got a score of 620 to 739? Yeah, you can get a mortgage loan, but it’ll cost you extra in terms of interest rate or fees. This morning’s story by Assosicated Press in the Telegraph Herald shows that over one-fourth of consumers (25.5%) have a credit score of 599 or lower. If you’re a seller you can say Sayonara, Baby! (click the link!) to the 43.4 million people who fall into this unfortunate category.
Allright, but what’s been going in Dubuque’s Market lately? I’m glad you got around to asking. As I’ve mentioned, the business is slower than it usually is. Here’s a quick run-down of this last week’s activity:
- New Listings: 23
- Price Changes: 17
- Homes Sold: 12
- Pending Sales: 14
- Expired of Whithdrawn Listings: 4
Consider this – the same week in 2008 (an OK, but not completely awesome, year) saw 38 listings enter the market, of which 22 of them eventually sold. Let’s check out the figures and charts for the latest rundown of the current market and recent market history…
Dubuque Listings Inventory Analysis
Current Total Listings: 476
Active/Available Listings: 372
Pending Sold Listings: 104 or 21.8% of Current Market
Dubuque Sales Previous 12 Months: 877 or 73.1 Homes Sold per month
Supply of Homes: 5.1 Month Supply Percentage Selling Per Month: 19.6%
Click to Enlarge
_____________________________________________________________________
Dubuque Yearly Sales & Averages
Previous 12 Months: 877 Sales – Average Price $154,682 – Days on Market 71
Two Years Ago: 720 Sales – Average Price $155,006 – Days on Market 86
Three Years Ago: 820 Sales – Average Price $148,753 – Days on Market 75
Four Years Ago: 975 Sales – Average Price $145,028 – Days on Market 68
Five Years Ago: 1001 Sales – Average Price $146,557 – Days on Market 70
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Note that I’ve swapped the Average Mean Price chart for a new chart tracking the Average Number of Days on Market. Days on Market is key information for home sellers. While we all wish we could beat the average, a number of homes for sale do not. Once you’ve hit or gone past the Average Days figure with your listing, you very likely are becoming Market Stigmatized by the buyer public. If they see that the home has been listed for 158 days and the current average is 71, the buyers just can’t help themselves but think there is a serious problem, either with the price, how well the homes presents itself, or that the sellers are unwilling to negotiate.
“How long has it been listed?” is easily the most common question I get at an open house. The buyers want to know (or at least guess) if the home is reaching a sort of market stigmatization point. I could write another lengthy blog post about Days on Market, and I think I will soon…
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }