I can’t believe it’s been over 2 months since my last update when I mentioned there were fewer homes on the market, fewer pre-foreclosures notices being sent to delinquent home owners and fewer actual foreclosures taken place along with prices stabilizing or even inching up a little in some price ranges.

The good news in 2 months, not much has changed.  After having a record breaking number of homes sold in June there was still plenty of positive news in July.

1. The number sold homes in July 2011 (8,522) was up 23.3% as compared with July 2010
2. “Active” homes for sale on August 1, 2011 were 27.787, down 34.6% from 8/1/2010 and down 3.6% from June 2010
3. Pre-foreclosure (or 90 day Notices of Trustee Sales) continued to go down in July to 4,015 as compared to June  4,262 and July 2010 7,802
4. Homes actually foreclosed on by the banks also went down in July to 3,176 compared to 3,887 in July. This has been the trend.   
5.  Homes under $100K had dramatic sales growth in number of homes sold, while the $200-400K range and the very top end over $3 million were down significantly.
6. So when the media talks about averages, it looks like the average sale price has gone down but in reality in those price ranges where the number of homes sold has increase the pricing has been increasing.
7. New home sales are making a resurgence. Permits taken out by builders have been increasing. Since their time of construction is 4-6 months out, their view point of the home market is longer term thinking than what is taking place today. 

Personally, I had 2 out of state buyers looking for a 2^nd home for their winter stay; make offers on homes under $130K only to get back a multiple counter offer and my buyers lost out because they didn’t go high enough ABOVE the list price. 

I had 2 other buyers be successful in getting homes they wanted. Both homes were investor fixed up homes, not foreclosed or short sale homes with repair issues. They were listed in the $175-235K range. On both, we originally offered $12-18K less than what they were listed for.  But there was no budging on the list sales price from these sellers. They knew they could command top dollar because; they had a lot of viewings of their respective properties, other homes in the neighborhoods were selling above their listed price and they looked great because they had been rehabbed. Both homes “appraised” for the price we contracted for and these homes should close in August.

Where does the market go from here? Nobody knows but the laws of supply and demand usually dictate.  When supply goes down and demand stays the same, then pricing will go up.

Feel free to write back or email questions to Steve@SteveRook.Net

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