Call: (301)943-4370
How is the Silver Spring Market? Let's first look a general look at the Montgomery County, MD Housing Report for Single Family Homes, courtesy of GCAAR.
Yes,
neighborhoods vary, but this trend is important to look at as well to get a feel
for the local market of single family homes. Listings were up by 14.4% in June
compared to June 2013 and listings are up year to date 44.1% from last year.
Everyone is hearing it is a good time to sell, good interest rates. The
percent of contracts was down compared to last June and comparing last year to
this year, year to date. It looks like more homes were put on the market in
June than went under contract, so there is a net of more inventory. Settlements
were also down compared to last June and overall last year.
To me the listings and
contracts sections are most relevant. If we look to the right of the page,
'Sales Trend', "contracts ratified per month", you can see the market was very
hot last June, with about 1000 homes going under contract. The numbers dropped
for a few months, increased in October and then dipped until January when the
market got hot again....even with the bad weather coming contracts trended up in
February, March and April before going down in May and June. My theory on the
winter is that some sellers held back their homes until the weather was better
and buyers so a lack of inventory. Going down to the pie chart, 12.2% of the
contracts were in the $500k-$599999 range and 9.1% were in the $600k to $699999
range. 8.2% were in the $700k range to the $799999 range. Right below that is
the average and median price of homes that have been going under contract.
Average is literally taking the sales prices and dividing them out. Median ties
to accounts for homes that were either a lot higher or lower than the other
homes and impacted the average.
The next 4 pages are from a June 2014 market report from
Long & Foster, looking at the 20901,20902,20903,20904,20905,20906,20910
zipcodes...Silver Spring. More focussed on our market.
Looking at page 1 above, compared to last year,
units sold up, active inventory the same about, median sales iceup, days on
marked up. The number of homes on the market in June was l5% less than the
number of the homes on the market last June, so inventory is working in a
seller's favor.
The next page (below/ page 2) gives a breakdown of condos/coops, attached and
detached homes on the market. The median sales price in June 2014 was up, $369k compared to $350,500 in 2013.
Page 3 (below) shows that compared to last year the
Silver Spring market has more listings and more contracts than a year ago and
the ratio of asking price to sold price stayed the same at 98.7%.
The
box on the right corner estimates that if no other homes were listed, it would
take 2.2 months for all Silver Spring homes on the market to sell, which is down
by 3% compared to last June.
Page 4 (above), the last page of the report (above) says that in
June it took on average 34 days for a home to get under contract compared to 31
days last year.
Generally speaking it is considered to be a "seller's market" when houses sell in 4/5 months or less and a "buyer's market when homes are the market beyond 4/5 months. However, based on the above statistices, Between 1 and 2 months on the market is a relatively long time for a home to be active in the Silver Spring, MD. market. Of course, there are variables which impact the days a home may be on the market, such as number of buyers looking in different price ranges. That being said, the home probably needs to be repositioned in price and/or property condition if it hasn't gotten under contract within a month or so. In fact, it is my suggestion that one's first price adjustment should be if a home has been on the market for 2 weeks and/or 15 bonified buyers (not neighbors who are just curious) have gone through the home and haven't made an offer, that the price be adjusted and adjust the price/property condition again if in a couple weeks it is still on the market.
You don't often get a second chance to make a first impression. The most activity on a home tends to be the first 2 weeks on the market. So it is important for a home to show well and be priced well up front.
Whenever you or someone you know is thinking about selling your home, I would be happy to come over to look it over, give suggestions on any work/staging you could do to make the home more appealing to buyers and also suggest a price range for listing your home. I appreciate and always hae time for your referrals.
Thanks!
Life is good!
Adam Bashein
Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc.
Licensed in MD & DC
Cell: (301)943-4370
Office: (301)469-4700 - ask for Adam
www,basheinhomes.info
information deemed to be accurate but not guaranteed