St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch October 4th, 2008

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
October 4th, 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 seeing 100+ fewer listings than last week and fewer homes accepting contracts. Our pending ratio is better than one percent below last week at 10.89 percent and we are seeing more listings expiring and staying off the market, at least for now.

It’s no wonder, with all the financial news this past week. Between the $700 Billion Bailout package issues this past week and now we’re still not sure whether Citicorp or Wells Fargo owns Wachovia’s banking and/or securities departments. What else can we throw on the fire to make buyers and sellers in our marketplace sit and wait??

Another issue that has hit home with us this week is is our first-hand experience with lenders tightening the screws with not only their lending requirements but also their appraisal review procedures. It really does seem to follow that tightening lending practices would include adjusting appraisal reviews.

Buyers in today’s market—take note: Depending on where in the St. Louis Metro area you are buying, a good tip would be to talk to your lender and get a real good idea of how their appraiser will set values and how they will look for comparable properties when appraising your new home. What we have seen is that appraisers and lenders are looking back about 90 days for comparable sold properties and not looking much further out than 3–5 miles at the extreme from the subject property. Depending on the area you are buying in, they may not look outside of your subdivision or zip code. This shouldn’t be a problem in a lot of the St. Louis Metro area, but there are isolated areas, and price ranges, where this scenario can cause major headaches.

Lenders right now are being extremely cautious; The last thing they need is to create more “Toxic Assets” on their books. I can’t say as I blame them, but the buyers out there need to be very aware of this.

Buyers-when you look at comparables prior to making an offer on that dream home, pay careful attention as to where they are and how long ago they sold. That should give you an idea as to what an appraiser will see also. Talk with your real estate professional, as they should be very in tune with this process.

ARE YOU thinking of buying or selling a home? Contact Doug Aegerter or Art Wagner for more information and a FREE Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) of your home or your neighborhood.

St. Louis Real Estate St. Louis County Market Watch October 4th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch October 4th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch September 27th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report September 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 (Closed transactions last 6 months)
Expired (Last 6 months)
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, October 5th, 2008 at 5:46 pm 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.