The red line on the chart above shows the number of homes that were listed for sale through the Regional Multiple Listing Service (MLS) each week since the beginning of the year. The blue line shows how many homes had offers made on them that were accepted by the sellers during the same week. Homes with offers on them are called pending sales and are used as a metric to measure the health of the real estate market. Real estate is local and these numbers are for St. Paul Minnesota, but are pretty similar to the rest of the metro area, but probably not relevant to the real estate market in say California. real estate is local. National trends are important but what is happening in your own neighborhood may have a bigger impact.
Buyers are writing offers. The market is becoming more balanced. In 2007 it seemed like everyone wanted to sell and no one wanted to buy and the inventory of homes on the market kept rising. This year the inventory of homes for sale is much lower than in 2007 or 2008 and it continues to drop. There are currently 1611 homes on the market, or about half as many as there were last August. At the same time almost twice as many homes sold in July of 2009 when compared with July of 2008.
Home prices seem to be stable. They are not going up but they are not going down either. Homes will sell quickly if they are in good condition and priced correctly. Buyers who wait a few months before making an offer on that special house discover that it is gone in a few weeks. Some of the homes are selling in a week or less and others are getting multiple offers. There are still homes that have been on the market for a long time especially in the higher price ranges.
Good visual aide!
Like a lot of people, I rely on seeing something for it to take effect.
It appears as though the inventory is on its way to being threatened by pending sales. That’s good news!