What "the Market" really means

We've all heard it. We've all read it. We've all definitely seen it. People keep saying how Bad the Market is. But where is, and what exactly is "the Market"?

Real Estate Market's are so individualized and so local that your Friend in the next town over could have a decreasing home value when you actually saw your home value increase! When you go to see how much your home is worth, you want to know how the homes in your Specific neighborhood/area are doing, not the ones in your entire City and Metro area, mainly because you are competing for buyer's in your neighborhood, not with the entire Metro area. When a prospective buyer wants to move into your neighborhood,they will look at what is available in their price range. So if your neighbor priced their home too high, and yours is priced accordingly, then they'll want to look at yours first.

Sometimes there aren't a lot of comparable homes in your specific area, but a knowledgeable, and local, Real Estate Agent will be able to make the appropriate adjustment's when it comes to finding your Home's estimated value. Adjustment's can be made based on many different criteria, for example, homes in the more Rural parts that have lots of acreage, have a different formula than when finding a price for a home in the center of a city.

The Portland Metro Real Estate market is completely different than the markets of Vancouver, Eugene, the coast and everywhere else in between. But the market's are even more localized than that. For example, Gresham's market is so incredibly different from Hillsboro's market that it doesn't make sense to compare them.

When looking to see how your individual market is doing, you want to look at a few key indicators.

• How many homes are on the market in your specific area
  *How many of those are Short Sale or Bank Owned
  
• How long they've been on the market 
• The median list price of those homes
• Homes that have sold, how long they were on the market, and what price they were originally listed for versus what they actually sold for

When looking to see what your home would be comparable to, the feature's you may expect to be important may not be the ones that buyer's are looking for today. For example, some features that buyer's find important are:

• Floor plan/layout
• Condition of home
• Updates
• Room size
• Livable Square Footage

Something else that we've found recently is that buyer's aren't as interested in doing updates and remodeling, at least not as much as previous years. They are actually willing to pay extra to have a house completed than to worry about doing it themselves. (Source 2010 Profile of Home Buyers) Always speak with a Real Estate Professional when you are thinking of making any updates or additions to your home, to make sure you will get the most value you can.

If you are wondering what your local market really looks like, and would like to see how much your Home is worth in today's Real Estate times, then contact me, and we can discuss what your home and area are looking like and can answer any further questions you may have.