Lake Cyrus Real Estate Market Report

This Lake Cyrus real estate market report is a continuation in a series of blogs about the performance of some of the larger neighborhoods in Hoover, AL to assist buyers and sellers in assessing their negotiating position.  I should disclose that I am a resident of this neighborhood and have lived here for the past three years.  Let's take a look at sales and inventory history for the last three months of 2009 in comparison to the same period in 2008 by referring to the chart below:

 As shown in the chart at left, improvements in sales (both units and volume) and average days on market would suggest a relatively strong neighborhood relative to supply and demand.  However, there is weakness in the average list and sale prices and, while pretty strong in December, months inventory appears a little problematic.  Now take a look at the chart below / right:

What the chart are right shows is that homes currently listed (i.e., have not yet sold) are (1) priced higher and (2) have been on (and stay on) the market longer.  It also shows that new construction, which in Lake Cyrus has predominantly (if not EXCLUSIVELY) been homes less than $275,000, is selling at a much healthier clip and much quicker than resales.  Simply put, builders are catering to demand by building homes in a price range that meets the market's desires.  Put another way, whereas 3-4 years ago, there were plenty of recently-constructed, luxury homes with larger lots, there are now only resales (i.e., not new) in this category.  Buyers are buying smaller homes with smaller lots and builders are accomodating demand.  Meanwhile, resales, especially resales of homes priced greater than $300,000 are taking longer to sell.

What does this mean for buyers?  This Lake Cyrus real estate market report suggests that this is clearly a buyers market, even more so than the rest of Hoover in general (in my humble opinion).  As such, it is a great buying opportunity as homes can be purchased for prices well below values seen just a few years ago.  For sellers, it means that the focus on (1) proper staging and (2) aggressive pricing are even more critical than the rest of the Hoover market.  For sellers that may have purchased their home in the past 1-3 years that NEED to sell and may be facing financial difficulties, they may be looking at a short-sale scenario.

If you need information on a different market or neighborhood or would like a CMA (comparative market analysis) on your home, please email me at sold@markcrain.com and I will gladly provide the information you may need to properly, objectively and intelligently assess your options and situation at no upfront cost or obligation to you.  If you are interested in setting up your own personal search for houses in the metro Birmingham area, simply go to markcrain.com and input whatever parameters are important to you and you'll get pictures and descriptions of homes on the spot.  You can even set it up to email you links as homes come on the market.  This is a free service!