Forget The Fall Slowdown – Home Sales At 10 Year Highs!
Forget The Fall Slowdown – Home Sales At 10 Year Highs!
November 28th, 2016
The fall season is usually a slower one for Real Estate, but not this year. Even though analysts had called for a predictable slowdown in home sales this autumn, we’ve instead seen the housing market continue to grow over the past few months. October numbers are in now, and they actually show that we just had an incredible month of sales. The market beat the previous high (that was set last June) and ended up being the best month for sales of existing homes since February of 2007!
Obviously we’ve all known for a while now that we’re rebounding strongly from “the dark years” but for existing sales to be so strong at a typically slower time, AND beat the “expert” projections is even more great news. Interestingly, this comes at the same time we also learn that distressed sales are now at a nine year low. If the trends continue at a fairly steady rate, we should see distressed sales all the way back down to their pre-crisis rates again within a couple more years. We’ve also mentioned recently how home owners are seeing the most equity they’ve had in some time as well. Taken altogether, these seem to be signs that not only is Real Estate continuing to recover nicely, but very soon we may in fact find ourselves completely returned to conditions more like the times before the boom and bust.
Not everything is up across the board though, as sales of newly built homes were down just slightly (1.9%), showing more evidence of the frustrating lack of new inventory, even amidst all the high demand. And of course part of the frustration is the fact that we are experiencing amazingly low rates that help with affordability, but in order to create steady affordability for all types of buyers we need a range of homes built including more building in the lower price points. The good news on this front though, is that the homebuilders do seem to be building right now. You can probably see evidence of the growth of new construction any time you drive around your area.
We expect to see a strong 2017 for the housing market but will delve more into our forecasts as we near the end of this year. We hope you had a nice holiday weekend, and that you enjoy the rest of the season!
Where do you think things are headed? Want to take advantage of the surging sales? Have questions about any of this? Contact us for all of your Real Estate needs today!
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