St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch March 22nd, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
March 22^nd, 2008
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 WET!! The two days plus of rain we experienced this past week has created more challenges for buyers and sellers. Who ever said, “If you don’t like the weather in St. Louis, wait a day or so” has been proven correct again. This past week we’ve gone from summer temperatures to Spring rain storms and flooding to snow.

Our weather however, hasn’t put much of a damper on our market moving towards spring with the pending ratio climbing to 15.97 percent over last week’s 15.06 percent.

The Fed, once again, is trying to help push our economy into spending action by cutting the federal funds rate by Three-quarters of a point this last week to 2.25 percent. With this cut, the prime rate will also drop three-quarters of a piont to 5.25 percent. Their ultimate goal obviously is to encouragge comsumers to borrow and spend more to revive the economy.

Indications from a lot of experts forecast that with the uncertainty by comsumers of the economy, the stock market and the slump in the real estate market that it could take the rest of the year to see improvements in borrowing and spending. We are still in a climate of lenders hesitant to lend and comsumers hesitant to spend.

For good insight into this situation, check out Bankrate.com’s article by Holden Lewis, here. You can also go to RISMedia for additional info and insight.

With our conservative Midwest values, I’m sure a good number of buyers and sellers will tend to follow the forecast trends and wait to get into the marketplace. That could be a good strategy for buyers, but somewhat of a risk for sellers if home prices do indeed continue to decline into the year. Even the “experts” warn that trying to “time the market” is a difficult task, if not impossible.

For some great information regarding the real estate market and a really cool home-value calculator, check out the report just released by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) at http://www.ofheo.gov/.

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 March 22nd, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch March 22nd, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch March 14th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report March 2008

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:

Single Family Residence
Ranch Style
1300 – 2000 sq.ft.
3 Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms

Art Wagner can be reached at art@stlouisrealestatevoice.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under St. Louis Market Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Comment »

Bryan said:

Slight misconception, but not unexpected. The Fed’s rate cut is almost meaningless for borrowers as banks increase their spreads (the difference in what they pay to borrow money vs. what they charge to lend) in an attempt to rebuild cash reserves and keep pace with losses in other areas of the country. The prime rate has yet to keep pace with the drop in the Fed’s rate, and there is absolutely no factually based rationality to believe it will this time.

# 27 March 2008 at 3:25 pm