I wanted to catch us all up on what the Lancaster County PA real estate market looked like as of the end of November – I’ll have the December and year-end review up next week. Since there were some important trends to make note of in November, here’s my summary.
Remember, in 2009 we were dealing with the first homebuyer tax incentive – this caused a bump in home closings at the end of November 2009. As a result this November’s sales were almost 30% off last year at 310.
New listings were up 13% over 2009 and total listings active are up 17%, near record highs. LOTS of houses on the market to choose from! In the meantime, 50% more listings expired this November vs. November 2009. This number will likely double in December as many homes sitting expire. The majority will be relisted though.
Pending listings were up 27% over 2009, but pending listings in this case are not a great number to get excited about, largely due t0:
a) The dropoff in November 2009 because folks were not getting the tax incentive anymore – wanting to wait until the next one
b) The time to close is up almost 20%, meaning that many homes pending in October were still pending sale in November
c) Many homes are pending sale under “home sale contingencies” (that means the prospective buyer has to sell THEIR home yet), not mention short sale and other financing contingencies. Given the difficulties in getting a home sold right now, these deals are suspect at best.
I’ll take an increase any day over a decrease, however.
Lastly, Lancaster County home prices have stopped their slid this fall at about $165,000 median sales price and the average Days On Market have jumped to one day off the 4-year record 88 days in November. Almost 3 months with a sign in the yard on average! Get used to it.
On balance, I think the local Lancaster real estate market has rebounded as well as can be expected from the crazy abnormal spring of the homebuyer tax credit, with slow but steady sales taking place. The challenge for the first quarter of 2011 will be how high the home inventory numbers get before the spring sales resurgence takes off.
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