Looks like we are going to have a very busy year here in the Rapid City market. Here's a quick little history about our market to get you up to date on the past year or so in the Rapid City real estate market:

In May of 2005, the BRAC Commission put our local air force base on their base closure list which caused months of gloom and doom articles by our local newspaper saying how our real estate market would crash because of the loss of the 3,000 or more jobs. Ellsworth Air Force Base was removed from the list in August 2005 but the "Sky is Falling" mentality had already sunk in with many local buyers and sellers and our market came to a screeching halt!

In addition we had a record number of new construction homes hit the market which also put sellers into a tough position because buyers were going out and buying new instead of considering all the existing homes. Although homes sales remaind fairly stable throughout most of 2006, the last few months of 2006 were unbelievably SLOW for everyone in the industry (REALTORS, mortgage lenders, home inspectors, appraisers, etc.). As a result, numerous sellers have pulled their homes off the market out of frustration and limited showings.

So - what's going to happen now that we are in the new year (2007) and there are fewer homes on the market? Buyer's--- make your move ASAP to avoid the upcoming Seller's market! There couldn't be a better time to try and snag up some good deals before things take off again in the spring. The sellers who are listing their homes probably HAVE to sell and since they have less competition now that inventories have decreased, their homes will actually start selling and at a much quicker rate than the last quarter of 2006. Buyers are going to have to start getting a little more aggressive when they see a home they really like and make their move early to avoid the competing offer problems we had back in early 2005.

I have already started to notice that the number of buyers has increased dramatically in the past 2-3 weeks and I have watched homes on the MLS (multiple listing service) go under contract within weeks and sometimes days of being listed. Yet many sellers who have had their homes listed since last fall are starting to panic and are more eager to negotiate - so if I was a buyer in the market I'd be getting out to look at homes right now and not wait until the usual spring moving season.

Hope this helps familiarize you with the Rapid City, SD real estate market but if you have any questions - I'm just an email away! susan@sellwithsusan.com

Susan