Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 has our pending ratio dropping from last week to 10.27 percent, with a few more active listings and a few less homes accepting contracts.  This “slow down” is very typical in our local St. Louis Real Estate Market for this time of the year, however, it feels worse this year, as we are well below last year’s buyer and seller activity levels. 

What makes this year different than last year also is the $700 Billion Dollar Bail-Out (OR Capital Injection)plan recently approved and now talk about another Stimulus Package possibly coming down the road. It’s no wonder buyers and sellers alike are waiting to see what’s going to happen next. 

If you read, listen, watch the news,  credit and lending are loosening a bit. WHERE??  We are not seeing it here yet.  We think it will take another three to six months before we see any noticable improvements with lending institutions really beginning to lend again.  That’s what we need to happen to even hope to instill consumer confidence back into the market.  

This past week, Unemployment claims have risen again, and this time above the 90 day average by 25,000 to 516,000 and October retail sales have dropped 2.8 percent.  The National Federation of Independant Business has said that small business sales conditions were the worst since 1980.  There doesn’t seem to be much consumer confidence evident here yet.   Read Lou Barnes’ article posted on Inman News this past Friday entitled, “Economy needs full $700 billion, and more” HERE.

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

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 “getting ready for the holidays”.  Our pending ratio has risen slightly to 10.65 percent, which reflects about the same number of homes accepting contacts as last week, but with fewer active listings.

We are still seeing lower numbers of homes sold this past six months, compared to the same six months last year.  Most of the sellers who have let their listings expire are telling us they are ready to take a break until the holidays are over.  

For the sellers that are still on the market-STAY THERE; Buyer activity is still good and with falling inventory, your home has less and less competition.  We also find that this is the time of year when buyers tend to be  more motivated than the summer “tire kickers”.   There’s another motivating factor facing buyers now.  FHA guidelines will be changing after the first of the new year.  The minimum down payment the FHA will require will be going UP to 3.5 percent from 3 percent.  There are several other changes occuring also, but the downpayment change is the one that will effect most people using FHA financing. 

 This is worth noting in our market because the FHA loan limit is $281,000 (and change) and coincidentally, the price points that move our local St. Louis Real Estate Market just happen to be price ranges from $300,000 and down.  Check the current Market Watch Report and look for the highest pending ratios across all price ranges.  The double digit pending ratios are in these price ranges.

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 almost 900 active listings shy of where we were last year at this time.  We are also showing 130 less homes accepting contracts as compared to last year.  The number of homes coming off the market, or market rejected listings (expired), have increased by almost 100 over last week.

This week it’s important to look at our new smaller report which shows our average totals WITHOUT the $800,000+ price range.  Without the $800,000+ price range, our average Selling Price to List Price percentage is 97.7% with average Days on Market at 122.  The $800,000+ price range skews our numbers quite a bit this week. 

We are still obviously in a buyers market with 9 months of inventory, but things are getting a bit more challenging for buyers.  Inventory is shrinking, compared to last year, and now with lenders tightening their practices, some buyers are finding financing more of a challenge to obtain.  It still stands that buyers with very good to excellent credit ratings,  and down payment ability will continue to obtain financing without too many problems.  It’s the marginal credit ratings, low to no down payment ability and other financial obstacles facing some buyers that will continue to present challenges now and into the future.

This week, I ran across a great article posted on RISMedia.com addressing the concerns of many as to whether the $700 Billiion Dollar Bailout will really help our real estate market.  It’s fairly long, but gives a great over-view of how this all started, and outlines the major provisions of the nearly 500 page “Bailout” plan.  Read the complete article at www.RISMedia.com. 

DON’T FORGET TO VOTE TUESDAY NOV. 4TH.

DECISIONS ONLY GET MADE

WHEN PEOPLE SHOW UP!!

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 has our pending ratio declining to 10.77 percent, down from last wweek’s 11.33 percent.  We are showing about the same number of active listings, but again, fewer homes accepting contracts. Some buyers are still “sitting on the fence”, waiting to see what will happen with our financial and housing markets.  Due to this situation, our average month’s of inventory has risen to 9.3 months.  Notice that one year ago this week our average months of inventory was 10.4 months. Buyers, you still have fewer homes to choose from than last year.

RisMedia.com released an article on Friday, the 24th stating that sales of existing homes rose to it’s highest level in 13 months, due primarily to falling home prices and foreclosures on the West Coast.  Narrowing that down to the Midwest, we saw existing home sales increase 4.4 percent in September, but we are still 2.5 percent below one year ago.  The article goes on to state that the median home price in the Midwest in September was $152,500, which is 7.9% lower than one year ago September. Read the complete article HERE.

For our readers that faithfully use our Market Watch Report, we have created a new very short report, found on the same page as the current Market Watch Reports.  This week,  out of curiousity, and by request from several readers, we have produced the Market Watch Averages WITHOUT the very high-priced $800,000 and above category in the totals.  We think that the statistics in this price range tend to skew our averages somewhat, and obviously, there are many more consumers in the $100,000 to $799,999 price ranges than above. So, check out this new report; tell us what you think.  We are considering restructuring our report to separate out the very high price ranges, possibly making the $800,000 plus price ranges a separate report. 

Any changes, IF we would make them would be at the first of the new year. 

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 shows a very small increase in activity with a few more homes accepting contracts, coupled with less active listings, which has pushed our pending ratio up to 11.33 percent.  Our number of homes sold in the past six months continues to decline with an increase in expired or market rejected listings. 

The buyers we’ve talked with this week are still taking “stock”, literally of their positions with their investments and how the last several weeks of the stock market’s decline affects their cash positions and their home buying power.  With the election so close now, some are electing to wait until after the election, while others are forging ahead with buying decisions. 

We are encouraging those buyers who are forging ahead with their purchases to contact their lenders to make certain they are still “good to go” with their pre-approval for their mortgage.  This is also a time when it would be wise to have a second lender set up and ready to go, just in case challenges present themselves in the mortgage process.

Sellers in the market now should stay on the market.  This is the time of year when some buyer activity will fall off, but the buyers that remain in the market are the motivated buyers.  With almost 1000 less active listings for motivated buyers to look at this year as compared to last year, motivated buyers have less to choose from.  That’s great news for sellers, as you will have a better chance of selling your home, as long as you are priced within market value, OR a bit below market value.  It’s all about being the BEST in your price range.

Also, just because the Government has injected capital into a number of the largest banks around the country doesn’t mean the problems are over.  This cash infusion isn’t going to help people who are already facing pre-foreclosure, foreclosure or having to sell their home for less than their mortgage.  In the coming months, help for these situations may get a little easier, but none-the-less, many of these homeowners need help NOW. 

In our St. Louis Market, there are only a select number of realtors that have become experts at helping these challenged homeowners.  Many realtors in our area don’t want to get involved with foreclosures or short sales, as these transactions are much different than “traditional” real estate transactions, and usually take a bit more time and work.

At The St. Louis Real Estate Voice,  we have positioned ourselves to be able to help these challenged homeowners by getting involved in a number of these transactions and building a team of experts around us to help make these “untraditional” transactions flow as smoothly as possible.  Siimply contact us for more information.

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 continues to exhibit an air of caution.  Our pending ratio is down under 11 percent, with fewer listings coming on the market and more homes falling into the expired listing column.  Our average listing prices and selling prices are holding steady through all this and homes that are selling are doing so at an average 95.3 percent of list price.  On a comparison to last year, we are still behind by over 1000+ homes being sold in the past six months.

The majority of the prospective buyers and sellers that we talk to are choosing to stay on the sidelines right now, if they don’t have to be in the marketplace.  Those that must buy or sell in this market are proceeding very cautiously and arming themselves with education and information about our real estate market during the process much more than in the past.

We are all still waiting to see what and how the historic “Bailout” plan will be implemented, and I for one want to see how the accountability procedures are set up.  With proper accountability I believe this “Bailout” plan will work to stimulate our economy. 

The great news this week comes with oil prices falling, along with other comodities which have been falling since mid summer.  The dollar has risen 15 percent against major exporters to us, which should result in import prices sliding quickly. Lou Barnes, who writes for Inman News has posted a great article entitled “The Great Run of 08″.  Click HERE to read the complete article. 

More good news; the Fed, as of October 8th, has cut the federal funds rate by 50 basis points, or one half of one percent, to 1.5 percent.  Granted, this won’t affect mortgage rates immediately, but should trickle down in the months to come.  Read the article from Bankrate.com HERE. 

WHO DO YOU KNOW NOW that is challenged with their mortgage payments OR needs to sell for less than their home is worth?? WE CAN HELP!! 

Fill out the form below to view the Market Report.

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 continues our September trends with a few less active listings.  Buyer activity remains steady, as homes are accepting contracts and our pending ratio is holding above 12 percent so far.

The price ranges that tend to keep our market moving; $100,000 through $300,000, are exhibiting pending ratios still at and well above our average pending ratio.

St. Charles County is an area where this is very noticable as homes over the $300,000 price range have come to a crawl. The average pending ratio in St. Charles County this week is 12.4 percent, driven by the very active price ranges that move the St. Charles area.  In the $100,000 through $300,000 ranges, pending ratios are as high as 38 percent.

If you have a home in St. Charles County listed at $600,000 and above, you had better be ready for some long days on market, as very few homes in these price ranges have accepted contracts in the last 30–40 days.

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 September 20th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson County Market Watch September 20th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch September 13, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report August 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

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 pretty much a mirror image of last week, so I won’t bore you with reciting numbers—just click on the Market Watch report for this week and read the numbers for yourself.

The part of the current Market Watch that bears some discussion is the comparison of this week’s total average statistics versus this same week last year.  This week, we are 615 active listings fewer than last year at this time. Our pending ratios are comparable, with almost 700 fewer homes sold and 500 less expired listings in the past six months compared to last year’s same six month time-frame.

So..when your neighbor, collegue, buddy, or real estate agent expounds on the state of the real estate market and says we have too much inventory and pricing is falling into the toilet, please do us all a favor and SET THEM STRAIGHT. 

Pricing wise, our average list pricing has actually risen slightly since the beginning of the year, while average sales prices have held their own pretty closely in most price ranges.

The price ranges that have decreasing average sales prices are still less than one percent, except for the very high priced ($800,000+)  homes in St. Louis. Click this LINK to see our chart where we track six month average list and sales prices comparing this year to last year.

All this means that our local St. Louis Market is very stable, as compared to many other parts of the country. It’s those “other” parts of the country that get included in the mix when the news media gives us a blanket statement that, “The real estate market is terrible.” 

Now, all we need is the Mortgage Industry and lending institutions to discover a “cure”,  regain some real stability, thereby helping consumer confidence rise accordingly and our market will begin to show more positive signs of improvement.

Yes, I know the Fannie-Freddie take-over, bail-out, or whatever you want to call it, hopefully will help, but we’ll see what happens with that.  Lou Barnes, who writes for Inman News, put an article on Inman News last Friday entitled, “The Politic of bailout: a waiting game”.  It is definitely worth a read.  Click HERE to go to the article.

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 September 13, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson  County Market Watch September 6th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch September 13, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report August 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

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch

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 begins September with fewer active listings and our average pending ratio at 12.29 percent.  Our six month survey of closed transactions ( solds) continues to inch upward due to the numbers of homes that accepted contracts a few months ago and are finally at the closing table. 

Our six month survey of market rejected (expired) listings is also increasing as sellers are coming off the market for various reasons; school starts, frustration with the selling process, or not wanting to sell during the upcoming holidays. WHAT!! Yes, sellers are looking forward enough to realize that being on the market now could mean over the holidays also. 

With sellers coming off the market and would-be buyers still sitting on the fence, it appears that our inventory has increased by our average 8.1 months of inventory.  Actually, inventory is still going down, evidenced by less active listings.  Compared to last year in the same six month time frame, in 2008 we are well below 2007 levels of homes sold by almost 1400 homes. 

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprises Oversight (OFHEO) just recently released their report of home price changes by state comparing the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2008.  Once again, Missouri and the St. Louis area is showing a pricing increase over second quarter 2007 of .9 percent.  WHOOPIE!  A point nine percent increase may not look like much, but it is further evidence that the St. Louis area and Missouri as a whole really is ahead of the doom and gloom national averages. You can check out the complete report, if you wish by clicking on: www.OFHEO.gov.      

One of our biggest challenges as real estate consultants in St. Louis is helping buyers and sellers understand the REAL market conditions in St. Louis.  

AND…if you weren’t aware of it, mortgage rates dropped again for the third straight week based on Bankrate.com’s weekly survey of the largest lending institutions across the country.  Check it out at www.Bankrate.com.  

This is a great time to buy OR sell a home in St. Louis.   

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 September 6, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Jefferson  County Market Watch September 6th, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate St. Charles County Market Watch August 30, 2008

St. Louis Real Estate Benchmark Report August 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