Market Update For Our Sellers

Karen & Todd send our sellers an update on market conditions every two weeks. Here is an excerpt of that e-mail.

We are optimistic that the market may be showing signs that it will be leveling off in the months to come. Here at Buckley Jolley, we had more closings in March than we did in any other month in our existence: 16 sides. There are two sides for every closing, a listing side and a buyer side. It looks like our aggressive pricing, sound advice and effective marketing have helped. However, I have noticed that our average sales price is down quite a bit from ’06 and ’05. Two things have added to the decline of our average sales price: depreciation, and the lack of “higher end” homes selling.

Livingston County’s March sales stats have just become available and the downward trend has slowed a little. In March of ’07 there were 151 sales as compared to 176 in ’06 and 250 in ’05. This is still a 14% decline in 1 year and 40% decline in 2 years.

I need to make a correction form my last email update. I stated there was 15.6 months supply on the market. Actually there was 19.6 months supply. I had forgotten to factor in available condos. As of today, there are 3173 available homes and condos in Livingston County. This translates to about 20.9 months of supply of inventory right now.

Here’s some promising news…Pending sales (Purchase agreements accepted but not closed yet) are up from last March approximately 15%. I am looking forward to telling you about the April sales stats when they become available. It would be the first time in nearly 2 years that sales would have increased as compared to the same month one year earlier.