Brought to you by Scott P. Rogers, Funkhouser Real Estate Group, 540-578-0102, scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com
Brought to you by Scott P. Rogers, Funkhouser Real Estate Group, 540-578-0102, scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com
Friday, January 28, 2011
In a lot of ways, they are --- but it's not as extreme as you might think.
After observing several houses go under contract at fantastic prices I was pondering aloud that it seemed that finding the right price would make buyers appear . . . because you'd be offering them a great deal.
That prompted someone to ask me about current price per square foot prices for houses --- and whether buyers were getting great deals these days. Thinking about one of the houses that had recently gone under contract, I commented that yes, houses are DEFINITELY selling at GREAT price per square foot rates.
That will teach me to make a broad statement based on one or two data points. This evening I dove into the data to take a closer look --- and to confirm what I was quite sure to be true.
To get the best possible sense of the deals buyers are getting these days on a price per square foot basis, I decided to narrow down the sold properties I was examining. If I examined all properties of a variety of sizes and ages, there would be so many variables at play that it would be hard to draw any conclusions. Here's how I limited my two sample sets of data:
My second data set examined homes matching the same criteria that sold during 2010 -- there were 35 such homes, and they sold at an average of $111/sf.
Hmmmmm......$4/sf better than a year ago.....is that a great deal for a buyer? That provides a $8,000 savings on a 2,000 square foot house. Instead of buying the house for $230k (in 2009) you'd have paid $222k (in 2010). That doesn't seem like an extraordinary cost savings to buyers --- so perhaps in the aggregate buyers aren't getting amazing deals now (compared to a year ago), even though they are getting slightly better deals.
Examined one other way, 26% of these houses sold for less than $100/sf in 2009......and in 2010, 29% sold for less than $100/sf.
So, it seems that while there are some isolated AMAZING DEALS in the current real estate market, you probably won't be able to get a FANTASTIC DEAL on EVERY house that's out there.
But, of course, every seller trying to sell their house right now would like me to remind you that:
After observing several houses go under contract at fantastic prices I was pondering aloud that it seemed that finding the right price would make buyers appear . . . because you'd be offering them a great deal.
That prompted someone to ask me about current price per square foot prices for houses --- and whether buyers were getting great deals these days. Thinking about one of the houses that had recently gone under contract, I commented that yes, houses are DEFINITELY selling at GREAT price per square foot rates.
That will teach me to make a broad statement based on one or two data points. This evening I dove into the data to take a closer look --- and to confirm what I was quite sure to be true.
To get the best possible sense of the deals buyers are getting these days on a price per square foot basis, I decided to narrow down the sold properties I was examining. If I examined all properties of a variety of sizes and ages, there would be so many variables at play that it would be hard to draw any conclusions. Here's how I limited my two sample sets of data:
- single family homes
- Harrisonburg or Rockingham County
- 2,000 - 2,5000 square feet
- built between 1980 and 2005
My second data set examined homes matching the same criteria that sold during 2010 -- there were 35 such homes, and they sold at an average of $111/sf.
Hmmmmm......$4/sf better than a year ago.....is that a great deal for a buyer? That provides a $8,000 savings on a 2,000 square foot house. Instead of buying the house for $230k (in 2009) you'd have paid $222k (in 2010). That doesn't seem like an extraordinary cost savings to buyers --- so perhaps in the aggregate buyers aren't getting amazing deals now (compared to a year ago), even though they are getting slightly better deals.
Examined one other way, 26% of these houses sold for less than $100/sf in 2009......and in 2010, 29% sold for less than $100/sf.
So, it seems that while there are some isolated AMAZING DEALS in the current real estate market, you probably won't be able to get a FANTASTIC DEAL on EVERY house that's out there.
But, of course, every seller trying to sell their house right now would like me to remind you that:
- interest rates are ridiculously low
- inventory levels are high, giving you lots of housing choices
- sellers are anxious to sell, and would love to have an offer to consider
