December listings report (2006)

Not only has another month gone by, but so has another year. I'll be doing a wrap up report of last years listings and sales towards the end of this month. For now though enjoy the monthly listings report.

Disclaimer: All data is compiled from the Data Exchange that I am a paying member of (WARDEX). All data is considered reliable but not guaranteed.

Listings:

Today total listings available for single family residence equals 634 (down from 684 on December 1). The good news is that the number is coming down, the bad news is that probably a third of the reduction is from expired listings.

There were 105 new listings for the month of December (113 in November). 2 home have entered contract of these new listings, and 1 home has already closed. The average asking price for these new listings is $227,322 (that's down from $242,571 last month). The median asking price is $215,000 (not much change from $215,950 the previous month). Good to see the average and median numbers slipping somewhat, the new listing prices are entering the market much more competitively than they were earlier in the year.

Units under contract:

30 homes entered into contracts in the month of December (down from 37 the previous month). The average asking price for homes that received contracts was $202,373 (up from $190,127 last month) and the median asking price for December was $180,500 (up from last months $169,900 figure).

Conclusions:

It is normally a slow month in December with the holiday season and I think it could have been worse than it appears. With the low total of units over the last few months the numbers seem to be going up and down to the point that I think an overall look at the last quarter would offer a better look at the state of the listings market. Still, the pricing trends are heading down slightly and I believe we are now seeing a clearer picture of the sellers that really NEED to sell and separating themselves from the sellers that simply WANT to sell (to capture equity, etc.)

There remains a market imbalanced in my opinion in favor of buyers. Buyers are coming out now more than they did a few months ago. The phones are ringing and buyers are on the other side more often than sellers are. I'm even getting hits on my sales web site at a decent clip asking for info on properties, best it has been in the last year by far.

Now I'm not going down the road saying that this is the best time to buy property, but if a buyer is in the market for a home... the fruit is ripe for the picking. Plenty to choose from and the competition from sellers on price continues to pick up.

If you are a buyer and would like to perhaps save even more on your next home purchase, please ask me how my flat fee buyers program can make it possible to save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Look for the December sales report in a couple of weeks and be sure to check back for an annual wrap up report on the year that was 2006.