Palmer, Alaska’s At It’s Best August 31st, 2007

Categories: Alaskana

I borrowed the slogan from Palmer Chamber of Commerce.   But it certainly fit the time I spent last evening at my son’s soccer game at the Sherrod Fields.  It really was Alaska at it’s best.

IMG_0661

How many places have a view like that as a backdrop to a soccer game?  It was warm and sunny for the games.  Parents and grandparents from the opposing teams were pleasantly chatting along the sidelines.  None of your screaming soccer yahoos here. 

The Valley Crusaders, ( a team of local home schoolers), played against Valley Christian School.  It was a hard fought game won by Valley Christian School.  All the players on both sides sported good attitudes and sportsmanship. 

I enjoyed the sight of a flock of Sandhill Cranes forming up to head south.  IMG_0666Fall is here, winter is coming, but it certainly was comfortable at the soccer fields yesterday.  IMG_0662Along with the sandhill cranes was a Cessna 172 practicing touch and goes at the Palmer Airport.  I was wondering if he saw the hundred or so cranes in his flight path. 

Summer sports at one of the many fields in the Matanuska Valley is just an additional reason why this area is a bedroom community for the whole state of Alaska. 

 

 

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Wasilla Real Estate Market IS NOT DEAD August 29th, 2007

Categories: Market Trends

I thought I’d put a little dose of reality out there for Wasilla area real estate.  There is a lot of bad news out there and a lot of it truly is ugly. 

If you only like to read the ugly stuff, here is some for today

The Wells Fargo link doesn’t clarify whether this effects us in Alaska.  Perhaps one of the local people can chime in on that.

But, the good news is…we still had 135 single family residential closings this month.  That’s down from last year, but it isn’t a crash by any means. 

The homes that sell have to be priced very competitively.

Here are the numbers

  • August 2007, 135 closings, Average price of $221,442, 67 days on the market.
  • August 2006, 143 closings  Average price of $228,251, 64 days on the market.

As I mentioned in a previous post, this data is from Alaska MLS and the true difference between this year and last year is likely a little worse than this…but not a lot worse.

Written by Marty Van Diest 1 Comment »

Wasilla Real Estate News, Monday Morning Market Memo August 27th, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

8/20/2007–8/27/2007

Here are the statistics for the week for Mat-Su Real Estate.  The market seems to be steadily moving along at pretty much the same pace we have seen all summer.  There is a large inventory but still an active buyers market.  Then inventory grew again.  I would expect it to begin to drop sometime this fall.

The following data box is for Residential Single Family Homes in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Average Price DOM
New 49 $249,135
Total Active 1011
Pending 30 $246,358 85
Closed 31 $235,895 67

I am using data from the AK MLS since last week so we don’t have a straight line from the data I used previously.  As mentioned in a previous post the data currently available is spotty.  I will be working this week to sort through it and come up with some accurate numbers. 

These statistics do give us a good idea of the trends, however.  And they seem fairly steady.

I have added another data set below for Vacant Land.  I will to continue this data in future memos to track what is happening in that market.  This gives us some idea of future new construction.

This info is for vacant land in the Wasilla area only.  Notice the large inventory in relation to the amount of pending and closed sales.  In both the pending and closed sales boxes the average price was influenced by one high priced parcel.  Otherwise the average would have been about $10,000 lower for both closed and pending.

This data box is for Vacant Land in Wasilla

Average Price DOM
New 6 $55,000
Total Active 745
Pending 4 $35,072 101
Closed 5 $65,600 113

 

 

 

 

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Wasilla Area Market Statistics. August 23rd, 2007

Categories: Market Trends

AkmlschartI have been working for awhile trying to come up with some good statistics to show where we are for the summer.  But it has been frustrating trying to find good statistics.

I have been trying to compare this summer beginning on May 1st until today to the same time frame last year.  But I haven’t been able to do that completely. 

The chart above from Alaska MLS purports to do that.  And they are doing it the best they can with the information that they have. 

I have also tried to do it with the Valley MLS system and I came up with completely different numbers…

Here they are:….

AKMLS shows a total of 285 single family residences sold in the core Wasilla area in the summer of 2006 compared to 262 this summer.  That is a decrease of about 8%. 

Valley MLS shows a total of 386 single family residences sold in exactly the same are during exactly the same time frame in 2006 compared to 293 this year.  That is a decrease of almost 25%.

The problem is that the data is very likely skewed.  There are more licensees inputting data in AKMLS this summer compared to last summer which makes the decrease smaller than it really is.  And there are fewer licensees inputting data into the Valley MLS this summer compared to last making that decrease larger than it really is.

 I believe that the accurate number is somewhere between the two and is likely about a 20% decrease in number of units sold this summer compared to last summer. 

I’m going to be meeting with computer whiz Ray Wood of Prudential Vista sometime in the next week to try to get accurate figures.  We’ll see how close my guess of 20% is. 

What we don’t know is if there are real value decreases.  I suspect that there are, but they are hard to show right now.  Values do not seem to have dropped significantly compared to last year but I don’t have hard data to back up that statement.  I discussed this recently with Appraiser Bill Johansen who said that appraisers are not yet showing a negative value adjustment.  We will try to get some numbers on that as well.

 

 

Written by Marty Van Diest 2 Comments »

Wasilla Real Estate, Monday Market Memo 8/220/2007 August 21st, 2007

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Well, I can?t call this the Monday Morning Market Memo because I?m typing this at 11:56 PM. I might have finished it this morning but Jay called at 6AM needing help with a moose. So much for the morning.

Average Price DOM
New 71 $241,513
Total Active 1009
Pending 47 $231,925 60
Closed 42 $217,594 63

This is the second week using the Alaska MLS system for the statistics. We see more of everything this week. There are a surprising amount of new listings this week, it pushed the inventory up to over 1000. I would have expected more to come off the market at this time with people deciding to stay for another winter. I guess that?s what I get for thinking.

So with over 1000 residential listings and less than 50 closing per week there is about a 25 month inventory on the market. That really isn?t that bad. Many areas of the country have a 2 year inventory.

Still if you want to sell you need to be competitive. Kibe Lucas gave me a good guage this week to determine if you are competitive. You need to be in the 30/30 club. You should be in the top 30% for condition and in the bottom 30% for price. I feel it?s a little off, it should be the 20/20 club.

Helping you get in the SOLD CLUB is what I do. Give me a call at 232?7900. .

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

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