Weekly Scorecard 10-19-09
The inventory after a BIG drop three weeks ago to 234 is slowly creeping back up. This week there are 245 homes listed for sale up 8 homes from the week’s previous 237. There were a large number of sold homes this week, 10 in total. They ranged in price from $370,000 to $1,800,000. There was one bank owned and one short sale. I took out the one sale at $1,800,000 which was a waterfront and the averages for the 9 homes was a sales price of $531,667 and average per sq. ft. sales price of $232. Closer to the prevaling $220 per s. ft. number than last weeks. However there were only 3 pending sales. In additon the average per sq. ft. sales price of the pending sales was only $210 per sq. ft. prices ranged from $395,000 to $700,000. This is the same trend as last week a large number of sold homes and a lesser number of pending homes. Looks like values have peaked and are going to settle back down to $220 per sq. ft.
Overall this time of year sees decliging sales volumes however I suspect the spike in prices has also slowed down sales. The buyers I am talking to are very price sensitive and have the position they will wait it out to get the buy they want. It appears that we are headed into a “trading range” where prices fluctuate betwwen $220 and $240 per sq. ft. The big driver on pricing will be if the amount of distressed inventory increases. The amount distressed inventory the more downward pressure on pricing.