Weekly Scorecard 12-7-09

By George Thurtle

Well better late than never. Here are the numbers for last week’s East Bellevue Real Estate Market. Inventory dropped again to 237 homes. This low inventory is again testing the bottom and is one of the lowest levels since the report began. As has been discussed earlier I am not sure if this is seasonal with sellers removing homes from the market or if it is a case where we are running out of sellers being forced to bring their property to the market.

There were 7 homes sold this week.; however all the action was mostly under $500,000. Of the 7 homes sold only one was over $500,000. The average home sale price was $430,571. The average per sq. ft. sales price was right at the typical EB average of $224 per sq. ft. There appeared to be no bank owned homes in this last round of sales and one short sale. Also again this week there was one home on the market that sold over the list price in two days. This confirms the trend of a large number of buyers who are trolling the internet for new well priced listings, when they see it they react quickly. If you are a seller try finding the market from the bottom up, i.e. price low to create urgency and drive the price up to the market price. Pricing at or even slightly above the market only sets you up for low offers and puts you in a position of having to continually drop price to find the market. This strategy only results in an extended sales period and in my opinion ultimately a lower price since you are captive to that one buyer when they make the offer.

Last week there were no pending sales however this week 7 homes went pending. The average list price of the pending homes was $650,379. The average per sq. ft. pending sales price was $217. In this batch of homes were two bank owned homes. Again pricing is static. No upward pressure on pricing but if you are seller the market is well defined at where you have to price to sell.

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