Market Update August 2011

Hello all, I hope this message finds you well!  We are reaching the end of the summer months here, so I wanted to give you a snapshot of the market and how home sales and prices are doing in Dane County.  With the economic times we are in, many are curious as to how the market is doing.  As a whole Dane County has been relatively protected.  The national unemployment rate was last reported at 9.1%.  Dane County's unemployment rate continues to stay under 6%.  As a result the national home prices have dropped an average of roughly 30% since 2006 (zillow.com), while Dane County has seen an average of home sale price drop off at its lowest point by about ~9-10%

Here are the Dane County Stats for single family homes for the last 6 years for the months of January-July so we can include 2011 so far…reminder... this is an average for the whole county, specific areas may have been effected more or less than is stated here.  Numbers are pulled from the South Central Multiple Listing Service.

Year     Listed      Sold        Avg Sale Price     Avg DOM     %  Expired

2011     4733       2268         $255,798                  96               33.8%

2010     5399       2622        $249,336                  84               35.1%

2009    4956        2499        $243,593                  84               39.0%

2008    5680        2643        $265,272                  85               41.1%

2007    6488        3308        $266,367                  74               38.4%

2006    4643        3367        $266,828                  68               33.9%

There are many ways to interpret these numbers, some are great signs and some aren't as encouraging.  Again, these are only from January to July for each of these years.  Some of these numbers may be surprising, specifically that average sales price is up from the low we experienced in 2009.  However if you look at the total number of sales we have had the lowest number of sales this year from any year, specifically, down 1099 sales from the peak in 2006.  Another note to look at is that it's taking almost a month longer to sell a home now than it did in 2006.  So even though the prices appear to be recovering in Dane County there are significantly less sales taking place and they are taking longer to sell.  Point...the current market is showing that there are buyers out there willing to pay a good money for a home, there just isn't as many of them.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you understand a bit better what is going on in our market!

Joe Marks, Realtor

608-444-5353