Wasilla Real Estate News, Valley Market Real Estate

Palmer, Wasilla, Mat-Su Borough Real Estate Stats for 2/26/2007-3/05/2007 March 5th, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Well, I expected to see a continued upward trend in pending sales and new listings this week, but it didn’t happen.  The reason I expected it is that we have seen increased activity on our own listings with more showings and three offers over the weekend.

The only thing that went up was total listings

There were two closing over $300,000 this week but the bulk of the activity is still on the lower end.  Notice that the average price for closed sales this week was under $200,000.  That is because there were two very low priced FORECLOSURE that sold this week bringing the average down.

Check back on this post tonight, I will have a chart up…it’s not quite ready yet.

  OK…it’s still today and I promised I’d get a chart up.  This isn’t the one I was working on but it’s probably better.  It’s from the Alaska  MLS so that means I need to use their disclaimer at the bottom of this post.

Notice what we have been saying all along.  Total sales are just about the same as they have been in past years.  So demand has not dropped.  But supply has risen so that now there is a higher supply than in 2005.  But the supply in February of 2007 is almost identical to that of 2006.  So far, it looks like Ted Jones is right…there is no bubble here.

“This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by, and to, the subscribers of Alaska Multiple Listing Service, Inc. (AK MLS, Inc.). AK MLS, Inc. does not guarantee nor is it in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by AK MLS, Inc. is for its own use and may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. “

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Wasilla And Palmer Real Estate Statistics for the week of Feb 19-26, 2007 February 26th, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

The following numbers show the statistics for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough from Trapper Creek all the way through Wasilla and Palmer and then out the Glenn Highway as far as Lake Louise.  Of course the bulk of the real estate action takes place in the core areas from Palmer to Big Lake.

You will notice that I am using the average prices rather than the median prices.  I do this because it is difficult to find the median price on Alaska MLS system.  I can find it easily on the Valley MLS.  The median price is the price at which 1/2 of the houses sold above and 1/2 sold below.  That is not the same as the average price because very high priced homes skew the average much higher than the median. 

The median price of the 26 pending sales this week is only $202, 450.  That means that 1/2 of the sales are below that price.  Folks, only 1/4 of the total amount of homes for sale are below that number.  That means that anyone with a house above $202, 450 is part of the 3/4ths of the homes competing for 1/4 of the buyers.

Since I belong to both the Valley Board of Realtors MLS system and also the Anchorage Board of Realtors MLS, I try to compare the numbers each week to make sure they are realistic. 

This week the numbers are a little skewed because the Valley MLS shows only 664 total active listings and the Alaska MLS shows 746.  Normally they are pretty close.  The funny thing is, the Valley MLS shows more pendings, more new listings and more closed sales.  So for the first time, I went with the Alaska MLS total numbers and the Valley MLS on everything else.  There probably is a little bit of play in the system somewhere, but it’s the best I can come up with using the numbers that I have.

Written by Marty Van Diest 1 Comment »

Monday Morning Market Memo, 2/12/07 February 12th, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Monday Mornings Market Memo for the week of 2/05/07–2/12/07. 

The graph to the left is a thumbnail, click on it to enlarge. It has a one month delay to allow all the data to come in before displaying.  It is from the Alaska MLS System and has this disclaimer regarding the statistics. Note the sharp increase in inventory.

 “This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by, and to, the subscribers of Alaska Multiple Listing Service, Inc. (AK MLS, Inc.). AK MLS, Inc. does not guarantee nor is it in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by AK MLS, Inc. is for its own use and may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. “

The graph below is for all the residential realestate on the Multiple Listing Service for the Matanuska Susitna Borough for just this past week.

There are currently 721 houses on the market, considerably more than last week.   We would expect the total amount of listings to grow and the pending sales to grow as well. There are 44 new listings compared to 41 last week. 

There were only 16 closed residential sales in the whole Mat-Su Valley.  This does not count lot sales.  Let’s think about that a little bit.  There are more than 400 real estate licensees in the Valley and more than 2000 in Anchorage.  Three of those closings were with Anchorage licensees so that only leaves 13 to split among the valley Realtors.  If all of the 13 were cooperative transactions, (and you can assume that isn’t true), then only 26 licensees had paydays last week  The reality is that only about 20 Realtors were paid last week  Wanna get your real estate license?

It appears that the days on the market (DOM) is growing in every category except closings.  Closed homes have shorter days on the market for two reasons  A few of those are pre sold homes so they were already sold before they were built, they closed as soon as they were finished.  They are the ones that were priced right and sold quickly. 

We pended 23 homes and closed 15. We actually pended a few less than the week before  However I have received offers on two of our listings last week and have good activity on two more, I expect them both to pend this week  So I still feel that the market is picking up, or perhaps it’s just picking up for us.

With absolutely no data to back me up, it seems that the market is accelerating into our normal spring rush.  See my Thursday post about the sun rising on real estate.

Check out the other articles in the “Monday Morning Market Memo” category to the right for comparisons.

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Monday Morning Market Memo, 1/30/07 January 29th, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Monday Mornings Market Memo for the week of 1/22/07–1/30/07. 

This is looking at all the Mat-Su Borough as a whole, not just  Palmer, and Wasilla Real Estate. Using the MLS system here are the statistics for the last week.

There are currently 732 houses on the market, up from 702 from last week.  You would expect the inventory to grow as we move into spring.  We would also expect the pending sales to grow as well. There are 45 new listings compared to 62 last week. 

We pended 21 homes and closed 15. 

Of all the residential homes on the market, 47 are cabins which generally means a small structure with no plumbing.  There are 56 condos and 10 mobile homes.  So there are 619 residential single family homes.  The average prices are all based on the single family homes, after eliminating all the rest. 

There were six more “to be builts” added to the market this week. 

A large change compared to last year at this time is the amount of time it takes to close a deal.  Appraisers and inspectors are not as busy as they have been in the past so we have fewer delays.  In fact, it would not be real unusual to close a transaction in 2–3 weeks right now compared to 6 weeks last year.

The graph at the top is a thumbnail click on it to enlarge. It has a one month delay to allow all the data to come in before displaying.  It is from the Alaska MLS System and has this disclaimer regarding the statistics. 

Written by Marty Van Diest 1 Comment »

Monday Morning Market Memo, 1/22/07 January 22nd, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Monday Mornings Market Memo for the week of 1/15/07–1/22/07.

This is looking at all the Mat-Su Borough as a whole, not just  Palmer, and Wasilla Real Estate. Using the MLS system here are the statistics for the last week.

There are currently 702 houses on the market, almost exactly the same as last week.  That doesn’t seem to make sense considering the 62 new listings this week.  That is because I am not showing the listings that were cancelled or expired.  

We pended 33 homes and closed 19. Both of these numbers are up from last week. Now that we have two weeks of statistics I will begin a graph starting next week.

An interesting note about the 62 new listings is that exactly 1/2 of them, (31), show built dates of 2006 or newer.  These are apparently brand new homes.  Many of these are “to be builts”, meaning the builder is advertising a home before he begins to build it in hopes of finding a buyer.  Many of these “to be builts” will never be built if a buyer does not come along. 

Another good sized portion of these brand new homes are existing structures that were listed last year and then either expired or were cancelled and then re-entered as new listings.  That is another reason why we had almost twice as many new listings as we had last week with the total active listings staying the same.

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.