The one question that I’m asked more than any, is: “How’s the (real estate) market?"
Everyone wants to know, whether they are thinking about buying, selling, or remodeling.
We are coming out of some dicey times. And in some ways, the market stabilized over 18 months ago. And it others, we are just now seeing what we hope is the bottom of the bottom.
Buyers are out in droves. Pending homes sales have jumped. My two most recent buyer clients had to make three offers, before getting something accepted in multiple, multiple offer situations.
Hearing that, you may be thinking about putting your house on the market.
A couple things to know.
- Generally speaking, current home prices area at about the 2002-2003 level.
- The time it takes to sell a house, on average, depends on the type of sale, and in a normal sale, the price range.
Considering all resale home sales (normal, foreclosures / lender-owned, short sale, and pre-foreclosures) as a whole, the average listing success rate have been over 50% since March 2009, and over 55% since January 2010. In the past two month, the listing success rate has increased steadily to 65%.
However, short sales and pre-foreclosures vary greatly from this average.
Short sales priced in the $200,000 to $800,000 price range have about a 50% success rate, while the upper and lower ends of the market tend to be in the 30-40% range.
When it comes for lender-owned (foreclosures, often called REO) properties, the success rates are much, much higher. In March of 2011, the listing success rate was 85-90%, pretty much across the board. If you look at the past two years, you can see that in the higher (over $800,000) price ranges, that the results are typically lower than other price ranges, and vary widely.
Finally, looking at normal listings, you can see that price range make a considerable difference in the potential to sell your home.
As of March 2011, the results by price range for normal listings are:
| Under $100K | 54% |
| $100K – $200K | 65% |
| $200K – $400K | 59% |
| $400k – $800K | 51% |
| Over $800K | 42% |
The huge run-up on homes priced under $200,000 has slowed in the past 12 months, but homes priced over $400,000 are selling again.
So….the odds of selling your house have improved dramatically in the past two years, as long as you price your home to sell at today’s prices.
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I like the post Dru, but I’m interested in knowing how you calculate your selling odds. What method do you use to figure listing success?
Thanks in advance!
Aaron, Here’s the definition from the Cromford Report:
Listing Success Rate is the percentage of listings that closed with a sale rather than expiring or being canceled. It compares the number of listings sold This Month with the number of listings that were sold, expired or canceled in the same period. This percentage gives a useful indication of what percentage of terminated listings closed successfully.
Helpful?
Yeah, it’s a bit helpful. I’d like to make calculations for the Boise Real Estate Market, but their description seems a bit too vague for me to make the calculation on my own…or, I just can’t figure the math out.
We are lucky to have the Cromford Report. It’s included as part of our MLS subscription service.