The summer of the Tax Credit Rebound continues...
Since the paint on August is still wet I'll stick with the July homes sales data for Lancaster County, PA. So what's new?
Nothing to great, actually. New listings dropped 7% over 2009, but sale were off almost 40%, this being the fallout from the tax credit incentive that drove sale closings into May and June. The pending home sales in Lancaster number was the one I was most interested to see, and they were off almost a full quarter versus 2009. I had hoped things would start rebounding sooner...
As we can see from the historical data, pending home sale peaked in April with an all-time high per the tax credit deadline of 4.30, then collapsed in May. I was hoping to see a bit stronger rebound by now but we'll see what August brings.
If you're a seller the competition continues to heat up; active listings are up 20% over 2009 and the average days-on-market is 16% higher than homes sold in July 2009. Pricing and great marketing are more important than ever to get your home sold. Expiring listings were also up almost 20% (notice a trend?) over last summer.
Lastly, sold homes in Lancaster County PA took a tumble in July for all the reasons explained above...most tax credit sales have settled already despite the extension of the settlement deadline by congress until 9/30.
Home prices for new listings were up on average - I checked on that and found several multi-million $$ homes that were listed in July; expect the actual number to be closer to June's average of $208,411. I'll take a closer look at Lancaster PA home prices in an upcoming article.
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