More good news, the number of homes for sale in March 2012 decreased, while the number of homes under contract experienced year-over-year increases.
Residential active listings were down 19% when compared to the same time last year. All seven of the major cities saw decreases in the number of homes for sale. The decrease in active listings resulted in the supply of inventory being reduced from 9.93 months in March 2011 to 7.57 months in March 2012. A stable market typically comprises of 6 month’s supply of inventory.
Under contract sales grew by 7% in March this year when compared to March of 2011. The increase in under contract sales suggests an increase in future settled sales over the next few months, though not a guarantee.
Residential settled sales fell a marginal 3.6% in March 2012 when compared to March 2011. Although residential settled sales waned in March, the median sales price increased to $185,000. This is a .54% increase from March 2011’s median sales price of $184,000, and is the first year-over-year increase in over 16 months, since November 2010’s median sale price was up 1.24% when compared to November 2009.
The distressed homes market (bank owned / short sales), showed slight signs of improvement for March 2012. Distressed homes comprised 33.53% of the settled sales in March 2012, the lowest proportion of distressed homes as settled sales so far this year.
March 2012 Absorption Rates by City
Virginia Beach – 5.87 month supply of homes
Norfolk – 6.97 month supply of homes
Chesapeake –7.22 month supply of homes
Portsmouth – 7.82 month supply of homes
Suffolk – 9.23 month supply of homes
(Note: 6 month supply is considered a stable market)
It’s an unbelievable time to buy real estate. Whey you may ask? Unbelievable aggressive pricing coupled with historically low interest rates also called “the perfect storm”. Today’s market allows “true investors” more buying power than we’ve seen in years. NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY!
If you would like to know what your home or investment property is worth, call or text me at 757-288-0983. I’m here to help!
All figures provided herein are a courtesy of REIN (Real Estate Information Network).
