April 2012 pending home sales on the rise
National Association of Realtors (NAR) recent news release March Pending Home Sales Rise, Market Recovering is indeed good news on the national level. So what is it like in our markets?
Local Market
We started to notice an uptick in the market when we began encountering multiple offers for over list price. Looking at three cities in the East Bay CA area, the pending sales trend seems to confirm that March ---- as well as April ---pending sales are on the rise. These figures were gleaned from the MLS, looking for properties that went into contract during each month.
|
City |
January |
February |
March |
April |
|
Alameda |
10 |
13 |
34 |
54 |
|
Berkeley |
7 |
11 |
28 |
52 |
|
Oakland |
75 |
119 |
285 |
36 |
No, it isn’t a matter of using a price strategy to list properties at less than market value because we did our CMA (Comparable Market Analysis) and we listed those properties based on our findings.
More than likely, we have entered a Sellers Market where there is little inventory, and there are more buyers seeking to take advantage of the lowest interest rates in decades and lower prices for properties.
InvestorWords.com defines sellers market as “Amarket which has morebuyers thansellers. High pricesresult from this excess ofdemand oversupply.”
Pending Home Sales trend as of March 2012
See article and video in Wall Street Journal "Real Estate Bidding Wars Are Back"
Steve Harney’s Keeping Current Matters blog at www.KCMblog.com provides an excellent illustration.
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