STEVE’S STAT’S – MARCH 2011
Posted on February 28, 2011 by JA/LEX Real Estate in Shippensburg homes for sale Shippensburg real estateSTEVE’S STAT’S – MARCH 2011
Brought to you by: JALEX Real Estate Services
Number of Active Listings in the Shippensburg school district area (per MRIS MLS system): 181
Number of Homes Sold in the period (3 months): 35
Absorption rate = # of homes sold / period: ¬¬¬11.67
Month’s supply of homes = Total active listings / Absorption rate: 15.51
(6 is considered balanced market conditions, <6 is a seller’s market and >6 is a buyer’s market)
Total homes sold on the past 30 days, Shippensburg school district: 9
Average sales price: $136,900.00
High sales price: $280,000.0
Low sales price: $16,000.00
Average days on the market for all sold homes in the past 30 days: 78
In the past 30 days the month’s supply of homes has jumped from 13 to over 15. This is great news for Shippensburg home buyers as this further reinforces buyer’s market conditions. This is bad news for sellers however as there is more inventory to choose from and less buyer’s in the market place. Overall, here at JALEX the past two month’s have been very active. I have never seen such a busy January and February as we have had thus far. There are a couple of things that I have noticed about people who are selling and buying homes in the Shippensburg area. First, buyer’s are being very cautious and making very low offers for real estate. Often because these offers are so low and the education that seller’s are receiving from their agents does not reflect actual market conditions, we find that the two never get together. Many seller’s are simply asking too much for the real estate that they want to sell. Buyer’s make low offers and the two never get together because emotion gets in the way. Our job at JALEX is to help keep emotion out of the deal and help buyers and sellers find reason through the negotiation process so that both meet their objectives if that can be done.
The second thing that sticks out to me with regard to selling Shippensburg area real estate in early 2011 is that there are very misinformed or under informed buyers and sellers in the market place. At JALEX we know that we are in a position where we have to compete against many other real estate agents and agencies. However, we believe that we must offer professional advice which is based on market knowledge, experience and data. This is what we offer the public and the local real estate industry. It is never easy to tell someone that they are not going to sell because they owe more for a home than what we believe that home will bring on the open market. However, the entire real estate community must begin to share the truth about the local real estate market. There are far too many real estate agents who lack the confidence, skill or education to property advise today’s Shippensburg real estate seller. This goes both ways though, real estate professionals must be prepared to share data with buyers to indicate the proper market values for real estate. Too often real estate agents are being led by their clients writing whatever offer that client wants to write without doing the necessary research to make an informed offer. This ultimately leads to disappointed buyers, unhappy sellers and a local real estate market slow with activity because the professionals are not doing the necessary work to bring buyer’s and seller’s together. I personally believe that there are plenty of buyer’s ready and willing to purchase their homes. There are obviously many seller’s and perhaps many more waiting to see what happens with the local Shippensburg real estate market. The two can be brought together and the local economy jump started if we real estate professionals would simply get to work and provide professional, data backed, integrity based, experience driven real estate sales and advice.
