And is it a Buyer’s or Seller’s market?
6,358 – Number of homes listed for sale in Pinellas County as of today. Same time last year we had about twice as many homes for sale on our market. What is going on? Inventory is rapidly depleting, banks are strongly controlling the release of new REOs on the market, many lenders are starting to process their short sales faster (ok, ok, not all of them yet!) and buyers are in their most active shopping mode ever since the market crash. It is no longer a buyer’s market. Not in its purest form, anyway. Yes, there are still plenty of homes that don’t get any offers on them, but reasonably priced properties that are in good move-in ready condition do get multiple bids. They often sell above the asking price too. This is definitely an attribute of a seller’s market.
However, this is only one side of the story. The state of the current economy is the other side. The rates are still phenomenally low. Why is that? If the market is going up, so should traditionally do the mortgage rates. There are still struggles in the market place, buyers are extremely careful about matching their income with their monthly payments, and family budgets are under a watchful eye of the homeowners. So, we are not out of the woods of recession quite yet. Unemployment levels are still not satisfactory and with the election coming up the future still holds some unpredictability.
One thing for sure – you’ll never know in advance when the bottom or the top of the market will be. What’s also important to remember is it’s hard to come out as a winner when selling and buying a home at the same time.
But this interesting season in real estate sure does look favorable (even if short-lived) for homeowners to sell. This is currently due to low inventory, increased demand and favorable rates. And buyers, willing to be patient with their search and avoid hard low-balling on good properties, still have a good chance of finding their dream home here in St Petersburg, Florida.
1,572 – Number of properties listed for sale in St Petersburg, Fl today. I went back to my post from October 26th 2010 and there were 3,388 listed on that day. This shows us today there’s a 54% drop in inventory of listed for sale homes in St Petersburg compared to that date!
What are your conclusions? Feel free to comment below or call us at 727-418-9016 with questions.
