Optimism....

Posted at 2:06 PM, Mar. 3, 2009

I guess I have been reading and listening to the national media too much. In fact, it did not seem as if there had been enough activity in our market for this time of the year. This is the time when we have the most visitors and hence the most opportunity to write a contract. But now, I have taken my head out of the media sandpit for a few moments and looked at our local statistics. It's both good and bad.

Transaction numbers are about the same as last year: 11 versus 12. However, this year's volume is less than half of last year in terms of closed sales: $1,525,000 versus $3,407,000 per TARMLS information. Okay, so what's the good news? At the end of February there were 10 escrows with a total list price value of $5,793,000! That seems like very god news to me.

We are still seeing a lot of listing activity and some of that is sellers switching agents. The net of the escrows, the withdrawals from the market and switching from agent to agent has left us with 76 homes on the market (about a two year supply) and 157 lots. It is a buyer's market. So, come on up to the Mountain Empire and let us show you around!