July 2010 Real Estate Market Update – Residential

We had 26 home sales in the month of July 2010 (versus 22 sales in July 2009). There was slight decline from last month (30 total sales), but I expected a slight decline due to the tax credit deadline of June 30th.

There are 53 homes under contract, up from last month (48). Historically, ‘late’ summer sales are always strong, as there are still folks in town vacationing and local buyers have a small window to purchase their new home before school & sports activities start in late August /early September. Also, a lot of people ‘watch’ properties all summer then make their offers later in the summer season, often times taking advantage of a late price reduction or a house that may have come on the market late and slipped through the cracks.

2 properties sold at full price or higher. 13 of these sales were lake area or vacation homes. The rest are primary residential homes scattered around Garrett County.

The average list vs. ORIGINAL sales price was 82.50%, down from last month (88.88%).

The ADJUSTED list vs sale price is 89.53% – also down from last month (93.22%).

The current number of active/for sale residential listings (minus timeshares) is 791 as of today, up from last month. We are still gaining more inventory than we are selling and this will continue to drive down prices from a supply and demand standpoint. With current state of affairs, this is a number that is unlikely to come down anytime soon. That’s a 30 month supply of homes available, which is a very challenging stat to overcome. Looking beyond those numbers will lead you to the understanding that we are at least a 50% or so vacation home market and our sales are seasonal, unlike Florida or Arizona where the weather is nice almost all year long. But still, 30 month supply is a lot.

Another stat I noticed was that there were no new(er) construction homes that sold. The ‘newest’ home was 4 years old, the oldest home that sold was 100 years old.

18 of the 26 homes sold for less than $300,000. One house that was listed for $1.125 mil sold for $875,000. There are several of these ‘motivated’ sellers out there – you never know what someone will sell for unless you make an offer, right?

Here are the statistical breakdowns:

Average Sale Price: $321,685 (last month $448,350) – the $3.5 million dollar sale tweaked this last month

Average Days on Market: 150/302 (last month 177/241) (days on market with current broker/total days on market)

I blogged the other day about Railey Realty’s market share – we are still #1 in Garrett County since 1995.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350