As promised in my earlier post recapping July 2009 home sales in Lancaster County PA,  here's a review of where we are as a county through July 2009.

First up is the home sales chart for the last 36 months:

New listings are experiencing a bit of an uptick for this time of year, mirroring last July/August.  As you can see, the bottom fell out in October due to the financial mess of that month.  This year should not be as traumatic (no election to influence, you see...).  Home sales took a downward tack in July and it will be interesting to see what happens in August, as by all accounts the market has been good this month. 

To some degree we are in uncharted waters in the Lancaster County home market, as the freefall of last fall is not expected to recur and the expiration of the first-time buyer tax credit in December will stop any incentive there.  Will we reach under 200 sales for the dead of winter again??????

So what's up with home prices then?

I circled the Julys on the chart - The home sales price rebounded a bit from 2008 in July and has been rising in a healthy manner most of the year.  Last year prices fell steeply in October/November, so we can certainly expect a drop into the fall.  Again, the effect of the financial meltdown and subsequent government reactions on our local market is hard to quantify, and all we can do is hope that we'll see a softer falloff such as occurred in 2007 (see the chart). 

Unfortunately, the "price gap" between list and sell prices got bigger in July rather than smaller as I had hoped in the June Market report.  That's a bummer IMO because I think the market would have practically exploded had the gap narrowed to very little (list prices would have been VERY attractive and buyers would have leaped off the fences).  As it was, list prices rose sharply in July.  Note that the SALP, or seasonally-adjusted (12 month rolling) list price is still down, though.  The SASP(Seasonally-adjusted sold price) has also fallen considerably throughout 2009, almost 10,000.  Good news for buyers even still...

Bottom line = no disaster here, and the future of home sales depends a lot on how we weather the fall in the shadow of the 2008 mess.

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 For Lancaster PA homes for sale click here. Jeff Geoghan is a top real estate expert in Lancaster County, PA, and an involved community member. Jeff's work has been featured in the Lancaster Newspapers, WGAL Channel 8, PA Business Journal and Wall Street Journal. Jeff's blog on Lancaster County and its homes is nationally-featured. Contact Jeff for more help with your Lancaster PA Real Estate needs. Jeff is also a photographer - view some of his lancaster pa photography portfolio. Comments are welcome!