Monday Market Memo, Dec 24, 2007

Wasilla Real Estate statistics continue to show more of the same thing we have seen for the last 6 weeks or so.  These statistics are for residential single family homes for the whole Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

That is a steady flow of pending sales and closed sales with an inventory that continues to diminish.  At this rate it is possible that the inventory will drop below 700 by next week.  But it won’t go much below that because there is already a backlog of houses ready to hit the market after the first of the year. 

At this point prices seem to be holding steady.  There are more foreclosed homes on the market which is an opportunity for people looking for fixers.  They are not affecting the existing home market because most of them are in poor condition. 

Homes have to be priced competitively to sell.  Many, perhaps most of the homes that are over $300,000 are still priced a little too high.  If sellers want them to move they are going to need to become realistic.  Buyers generally look at a lot of homes before they make their decision.  It becomes fairly easy to pick out the overpriced homes after you have been in 40 homes.