Some New Statistics

Just before the beginning of the fall selling season, it's a good idea to review some of the facts we know about the current state of real estate.  We know that Guilford, for example, has twice as many homes on the market now as have been sold since the beginning of the year.  By definition, that constitutes a buyer's market.  We know that pricing high is almost never the way to go, because one of our agents did an analysis of a shoreline agent at another company.  This second agent was known for taking listings at high prices, so we looked at what the sales results were, and the answer was striking, but not surprising.  The agent who lists high sold properties at an average of 59% of the listing price, while most other agents in the same area sold their listings at over 90% of the listing price. 

The final statistic comes from my smart friend in Madison, Wisconsin, whom I've mentioned before, because his market seems to be so much like ours.  He studied the phenomenon of "chasing the market down", which I've blogged about previously.  He looked at the selling experience of sellers who priced correctly from the start, and compared their results to those of sellers who just wanted to "test the market" or who priced their properties above what agents thought they should be for other reasons.  The sellers who priced correctly from the start got 12% more for their properties in half the time. 

What else do I need to say?

Is Madison, Wisconsin Leading the Way for Us?

As most of you know by now, I belong to a group of large independent real estate companies around the country. Some are in big cities, but most are in smaller cities (although bigger than New Haven or Hartford). For some reason, Madison, Wisconsin seems to be the most like our region. Dave Stark, the owner of Stark Real Estate there, and I have discussed this, and it's likely to have a lot to do with the employment base. They have both the state capitol in Madison, and the University of Wisconsin, and those are the two biggest employers. If you didn't know that before, you weren't watching the state workers picketing the Madison capitol!

Having a lot of non-profit and government workers in a region usually makes the employment situation steadier, as well as the use of commercial space. Universities and governmental bodies think in terms of decades, not months. Also, you don't often have the boom times that you would find in Silicon Valley, say, or Wall Street, or even a smaller place where a large manufacturer might open or expand a facility.

Therefore, I thought it was very good news last week when I received Stark's quarterly mailing. While they had the same horrible first quarter that seemed to prevail everywhere, the recent signs have been encouraging. They see lots of pending activity, and increased interest in real estate. I hope it gets here as fast as a big storm seems to do!