Pulse Detected in Local Real Estate Market
REAL ESTATE PRACTICE, SHASTA COUNTY, SHORT SALES, TIPS FOR BUYERS, TIPS FOR SELLERS
March 23rd, 2009
Word of mouth indicates sales activity is picking up in urban areas across the state. What about Redding? Are homes selling? Are buyers buying? Well, it depends!
I have several buyers actively looking to buy. Like most buyers these days, they are either first-time buyers or investors looking to take advantage of today’s low housing prices. The most important factor determining whether or not you will sell your home today is price. Homes under $300,000 are hot. Below $200,000, take a number. Bank repo’s? SOLD!
Buyers are finding stiff competition if they are focused on entry-level homes, especially if they are bank repo’s. Banks anxious to unload properties are aggressively pricing their homes, offering help for buyers to pay closing costs and offering above par commissions to real estate agents that produce a buyer.
In some cases, banks appear to be intentionally under pricing homes they are listing for sale to generate multiple offers and spark bidding wars. Earlier this week I checked on a bank repo on behalf of a client in Shasta Lake City that had just sold after one of four competing buyers produced the winning bid. I wrote an offer yesterday for a buyer on a home that just hit the market and it already has one other offer (so far)!
Farfield, California had the largest 4th quarter sales increase according to a ranking of 25 ZIP codes with the most improved sales volume in the US compiled by Business Week. Sunbelt states beside California with cities making the list include Florida, Arizona and Nevada. The increase in activity is attributed to price drops and cash-ready investors and first-time buyers making multiple offers on distressed properties.
In February, 121 homes sold. Homes priced under $350,000 represented 88% of the sales activity. Nothing sold over the $550,000 mark. The trend has been ever increasing demand at the lower end of the price spectrum with about half the home sales priced below $200,000. One other noteworthy trend is distress sales are nearly half the sales volume of homes sold in the Shasta MLS. Last year, distress sales (bank repo’s and short sales) were 32% of the home sales volume.
530-224-6767 or 530-941-7492
BRAD GARBUTT
REALTOR/BROKER ASSOCIATE
REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS GMAC
QUARTER CENTURY LOCAL REAL ESTATE EXPERIENCE
Good to determine you back. And again with an interesting article.