St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 15th, 2008

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 15th, 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 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.

Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   11.16.2008

St. Louis Real Estate-Market Watch November 1st, 2008

Filed under: St. Louis Market Reports, Uncategorized

Saint Louis Real Estate Market Watch by Art Wagner @ Keller Williams Realty Southwest, Sunset Hills, Mo.
November 1st, 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 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.

Posted by Art Wagner   |   Read More   |   Your Comments Are Welcome!   |   11.02.2008