2009 has come and gone and hopefully 2010 will be a better year for real estate here. The stimulus package for first-time buyers and move-up buyers through the end of April should make the first quarter look better.
Our market for December was UP again over the same month last year by 13.1%, our third increase in sales in as many months. With that increase in sales we’re now only down 9% in terms of units sold and 16.7% in total volume sales price for 2009.
It appears that the $8000 stimulus package has certainly been a stimulus for first-time buyers here, since 55% of our sales were under $100,000 while only 49% were under $100,000 last year.
Sales in Wood and Washington Counties which are down 6.4% and 8.9% over last year are 86% of our Multiple Listing Service sales.
Most of our areas continued to have fewer sales in 2009 over 2008 but we have had 3 areas which have improved the numbers of sales over last year: Mineral Wells/Slate, South Parkersburg and Boaz/Williamstown have increased sales over last year by 19.4%, 5.3% and 4.3% respectively.
The decreases in sales is spread fairly equally over the areas with Warren/Barlow/Little Hocking and Union/Williams down 18%, Vienna down 16.8% and the remaining fewer sales being down single digits.
With regard to price ranges of sold homes, the only area that increased sales over last year was the price range of $60,000-$100,000 which was up 5.2%. Every price range over $100,000 had fewer sales than last year.
With regard to our average days on the market, it takes 145 days to market a home compared to an average of 139 days last year.
The median sales price or our board area is $92,900, down 8.5% from last year while our average sales price is $112,297 also down 8.5% over last year.
The extension of the stimulus package through April 2010 and especially the addition of the credit for move-up buyers may change these numbers in the next few months bringing some activity in the higher price ranges. This may be the opportunity some sellers have needed.
Kay Munchmeyer
