St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch October 27, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch
October 27th, 2007
The Anatomy of St. Louis Real Estate

The St. Louis Home for Sale Team provides a weekly St. Louis County and Bi-weekly St. Charles County Market and Jefferson County Market Watch Report to review and plug into your home buying or selling scenario. Your questions and comments are welcome!

The St. Louis Real Estate Market this week is continuing to show signs of slowing with less active listings, less homes accepting contracts and the pending ratio dropping to 11.32%. However, we are still seeing the average listing price of homes that are on the market continuing to inch upward and the average selling price inching downward. WHAT!? One explaination may be that with less competition in the marketplace and with the market showing some signs of stability, new sellers entering the market now are pricing their homes a bit higher. Sellers that have been on the market for 90 to 120 days or longer are accepting a lower offer now, as the frustration and stress of being in the marketplace for 3–5 months is taking it’s toll.

Buyers that are in the marketplace now still know full well that we are still very much in a buyer’s market, but again, with less inventory, they may not be able to be as choosey and picky as they might have been this past summer. That being said, our over-all average selling price still fell by over $1000.00 from last week and almost $2000.00 from 4 weeks ago.

We are still seeing less homes sold; about 300 less than a month ago and the number of listings that the market has rejected (expired) continues to rise, as some sellers are fed up with the process and are not re-entering the market. Their explaination for this is that they will “wait till the holidays are over” and try again. We still talk to sellers that tell us “we’re going to wait till next year when the market is better”. We hope these sellers re-evaluate their situation over the holidays and do what is necessary to make sure their home sells the next time. PRICE, CONDITION, MARKETING; that’s what it takes. The sellers that hit the mark on these three points from the beginning are usually rewarded by having met their goals and their home sells.

As we’ve said before, our indicators tell us that the market we have now is what we will deal with well into next year also.

This is St. Charles Market Watch week and the St. Charles market is following the same trends as our St. Louis County market. The only major difference we see is that by following St. Louis trends, with only about half the active listings, St. Charles market times and months of inventory levels are higher.

TRIVIA: IF you’re a seller that also believes in LUCK AND PRAYER—There is a superstition here in St. Louis that by doing “something” outside in your yard will help your home sell. WHAT IS IT YOU MUST DO IN YOUR YARD? AND..it has nothing to do with perfect landscaping.

Answer next week.

Thinking of buying or selling a home? Contact Us for additional information tailored to your specific needs.

St. Louis Real Estate St. Louis County Market Watch October 27, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch October 20, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch October 27, 2007

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report September 2007

The report begins by breaking the market into 17 distinct price ranges. Then we show current listings and current pending listings which creates a pending ratio, which is helpful on a week to week basis to see if activity is increasing or decreasing in a price category.

The report also shows the last 6 months of results and compares the data to the same 6 months of the previous year.

The Market Analysis includes data on:

Number of Active Listings (Current)
Pending Sales (Going to closing)
Pending Ratio (Active vs.Pending)
Sold (Last 6 months)
Expired (Last 6 months)1
Average List Price
Average Sale Price
Average List to Sales Price %
Days on Market (DOM)
Months worth of Inventory (Based on current pending rate)
Buyers Market: > 7 months of listing inventory

Transitional Market: 5 - 7 months of listing inventory (sometimes called a “balanced” market)

Seller Market: < 5 months of listing inventory

Average % Sale Price/List Price (0-30), (31-60), (61-90), (91-120), (120+)DOM

Notice that you’re paying a penalty for over pricing. . .hey. .it’s a fact!!

The Benchmark Report is produced monthly for: