Now that we are 2 months into the New Year, it appears that the real estate
market is “steady as she goes”. Showing activity on listings is not bad, but
buyers are very picky about what they’ll pay for and what they won’t.

In our general area, right now there are 78 properties on the market. There
have been 57 sales in the past 6 months, and there are 18 under contract and
pending to close. At any given time around 70% of these properties are not
priced correctly (overpriced) where they will get an offer. That’s why when you
look at the breakdown of statistics, you find:

The active listings have been on the market an average of 128 days while
the under contract properties were only on an average of 64, or exactly half!
Translation? The ones that were priced correctly are selling, the others are not.
Until their price is competitive with others, proof of this lies in the next set of
figures which show that the average sale price to original sale price is only 90%,
but the average sale price to last list price is 96%. In other words, on average,
people dropped priced by 6% from their 1st price in order to get an offer, and
then on average negotiated about 4%. These, of course, are averages, as some
properties go for full price still, and others drop 20%.

As they say, “The devil is in the details” so you really need to know all the
individual sales data. Call me if you need help.

Meanwhile, please check out my new listings at 650 Josephine St. and 826
Madison St. I will have another 4 or 5 coming on the market soon as well.

Thanks as always!