The 2010 Real Estate Market… So Far
May 8, 2010 by Fred Ferguson · Leave a Comment
It’s taken awhile to sort out where we’re headed but I can see a trend occurring now and decided to write about it.
In the 2008 real estate market – 31,259 Single Family Homes were listed in the MLS system and 13,445 (43 %) of them sold. There were 14,148 condos listed with 5,661 (40%) of them selling. In the 2009 market the statistics improved. In that market there were 22,459 Single Family Home listings, and 14,440 (64.3%) of them sold. Of the10,323 condos that were listed, 6,328 (61.3%) of those sold.
2010 so far has seen 10,042 Single Family Home listings with 4,538 (45%) sales, and 4,771 condo listings with 2,159 (45%) sales.
So far, 2010 is like 2008 as far as real estate goes when we were hoping for a better year than 2009. CMHC and the mortgage lenders have made changes in policies which have knocked a lot of people out of the buyer pool who would have previously qualified to buy.
With fewer buyers available, sellers are going to have to be realistic with regards to the list price in the beginning of the listing if they hope to get their properties to sell. I predict the idea of starting high and coming down later will have the sellers ending up with a lower than normal selling price after languishing for a long time on the market or not selling at all!.
My advice to the buyers is if you can qualify now to buy, do so while you can still get a mortgage. Learn from the buyers who procrastinated over the last year and no longer qualify to buy… they’re probably kicking themselves but what’s done is done!
