September market trends

One of the things that I have found extremely frustrating, regarding the local real estate market, is that, although our market in the general Bucks County area has clearly become a, "buyers market", it is not as bad as most local press reporting would indicate. A farily common question that I get from sellers recently, is whether any houses are selling? The answer is that houses sell in our area, every day. The market is extremely price sensitive, so that it is more important than ever, to price a house correctly. Overpriced homes will stay on the market for a very extended period of time, in this market. It is also important to be pro-active in responding to the way the market responds to the price.

From a statistical standpoint, in most of our markets in Bucks County, the year to date sales pace continues to track below 2006. There are a few acceptions, notable Lower Makefield Township is actually about 2% ahead of last year, and Upper Makefield is about 8% ahead of last year, based on units. (This is for single family homes) With regards to inventory units, there were also differences from market to market, within Bucks County. For example, inventory in Lower Makefield declined sequentially from August of 2007, while many markets added inventory in September. Upper Makefield was about even month to month, while Buckingham increased inventory by approximately 13%, and Solebury added about 4% to their inventory. Newtown was down by almost 12%. In terms of translating that to months of inventory, Lower Makefield currently has about a little over 7 month supply, Newtown shows a 6 plus month supply, while Upper Makefield and Solebury actually show a 14 plus month inventory supply.

Average list prices of homes in inventory as of September in all of Bucks County remains up somewhat over last year, while the sold/list ratios in most markets show continued greater discounts versus last year. Overall, buyers are achieving approximately 5% discount from list price. This number is extremely property specific. I have recently had sevearl situations both with listings and with buyers, where homes sold for almost exactly, if not exactly at the asking price.

Please contact me if you are interested in seeing the specific spread sheet reflecting all of the numbers. We track this every month.

Hope you find this information helpful in analyzing the market. I will be more diligent in posting this information every month.