First a bit of disclosure...
I stopped taking a paper years ago. I view them about the same way I see phone books... a giant and expensive waste of paper. However I do in fact still voraciously read various trade publications along with our local paper online. The big news of late has been that home sales have plummeted 27% from June to July. So effective is social media that I received this news almost a dozen times before a client brought it to my attention in a printed format.
Our local paper managed to regurgitate the same story yesterday (read the article here) basically plummeting sales due to the expiration of the tax credit. And while monthly numbers (June-July) are in fact down, year to date numbers are up. If you dig a bit a slightly different story starts to emerge. Please keep in mind these numbers are for this area only... of course there are markets hit hard and they will continue to drop.
St Clair County saw 246 homes close in June 2010 and 172 in July. Telling numbers, however in 12+ years of selling houses I think maybe once a buyer/client asked me to show them all of St. Clair County. Those are called referrals. More often than not it is much more hyper-local. So let's look at 2 of our biggest markets and the impact of the tax credit.
The two cities we will highlight make up more than 50% of total home sales in this county for June.
Belleville IL:
In June of 2009 there were 79 closings. This number is important as there was no frantic rush to get things closed with a June 30 deadline.
June 2010: 79 closings. Notice something? Exact same amount with the deadline in place.
June 2009 had 48 closings - again no deadline in place.
June 2010 had 49 closings with the deadline. Tax credit = +1 over June last year.
So a grand total of 1 more closing in 2 of our biggest markets in the 30 days leading up to the deadline.
Odd this did not make it into the paper...
Since this is primarily an O'Fallon IL focused Real Estate site I will expand a bit further.
Now that the credit has expired and July numbers are in (August to follow shortly) we can see a bit of a drop.
July 2009 had 44 closings. July of 2010 had 41. Down 3 but not what I would call plummeting.
Now...
August is not over but already O'Fallon is ahead of last year.
August 1-25th 2009 24 homes closed
August 1st-25th 2010 35 homes closed
Encouraging numbers as we head into the 4th quarter of 2010.
Another interesting note....not a single active REALTOR was interviewed, Executive Officers for both of our local boards were quoted but I am fairly sure they are not currently selling homes.
Countdown to a paperless office - 5 DAYS!
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