Home Sales Get Boost Per Old-Fashioned Sources

Lately you may have noticed that it has become more of a pleasure to open the newspaper when you are checking up on real estate news. In addition to the Internet news feeds, I do still subscribe to some of the old-fashioned kind, too: the ones printed on actual paper (so you can tear interesting articles out and carry them around rather than just Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Ving them). Given the definite possibility that paper papers won’t be around much longer, I enjoy them while I still can. The Wall Street Journal is one. I opened it up on Saturday to find a headline at the top of the second page that got my attention: “Home Sales Rise For 15^th Month,” it fairly screamed. If you are a frequent visitor here, you know that I follow and comment on home sales and associated topics regularly -- but even I hadn’t realized that the trend has been going for such a long time. I took a look at the charts, and it is so! Others noted the mark, too. The NY Times seems in a permanently grouchy mood of late, so it had a less ebullient take on the statistics (which originated with the NAR). But even they were forced to note that higher prices have become the rule rather than the exception. “The nation’s stock of existing homes for sale fell 3.3% last month…tight inventories have helped support home prices…,” the Grey Lady mumbled. The Journal was more cheerful in approaching the latest numbers. “The markets need inventory right now,” they quoted the president of a leading appraisal firm. “The pent-up demand is enormous.” You certainly can appreciate observations like that – especially if you are a homeowner who is keeping an eye on home sales since you might list soon. If you fall into that category, I hope you will check in with me to get a more precise readout of the Hagerstown home sales market, and what you might expect from this fall’s selling season. The Journal says, “…there are signs that demand could be picking up.” Since they also noted that national median home prices rose 11.3% from a year ago, you would have to say that’s a pretty safe assumption. Courtesy of RG REALTY INC