Wasilla Real Estate News
Real Estate Statistics for 10/1–10/8/07
Here are the numbers for houses sold this week. This chart shows residential homes only. It does not include vacant land, commercial, or multi-family homes.
We had 28 pendings. That is still a respectable number for the week. A little down from last week but not bad. Notice that the average price for new pendings this week is below $200,000.
Many of those pending homes are brand new pre-sold homes. These are homes for which a builder has contracted with a buyer to build a home on a particular lot. Builders aren’t blind, they can see where the demand currently is and they are creating plans to meet it.
| Average Price | DOM | ||
| New | 51 | $215,710 | |
| Total Active | 929 | ||
| Pending | 28 | $198,888 | 65 |
| Closed | 26 | $205,045 | 35 |
Notice the two charts below: The one on the left is for the Matanuska Susitna Borough as a whole and the one on the right is for the expanded core area only. The expanded core includes Palmer, Wasilla, Big Lake, and the Knik-Goose Bay road out to about mile 9.
Click on the charts to enlarge.
I include both charts to show that although the Mat-Su Borough is about the size of the State of Iowa, almost all the real estate activity takes place in the expanded core area.
Looking at these charts raises an interesting contrarian strategy for home sellers. Notice how the new listings are at their lowest ebb in November and December. New listings are the ones that receive the most attention. The two weeks after your house hits the market are the times you generally receive the most attention.
If you were to put your house on the market in November or December, you would be competing with about 1/2 as many new sellers than you would at other times of the year. While there aren’t as many buyers then either, notice that the amount of closed sales does not drop as dramatically as do new listings.
Your house would still need to be in good shape, and in the part of the market where there is a demand. For example, although there are 35 houses on the market currently over $750,000, guess how many show up as sold on the MLS in the past year…ZERO. So, it won’t help you if you are overpriced for the market, but it certainly could if your home is in a lower price bracket.
If you would like consultation about strategies to buy or sell real estate, call 907 373–0999. That number rings my cell phone and Jay’s at the same time.
Click here for more info on consultation, as opposed to sales.
