Buyer activity seems to be off right now. Most of the buyers out there don’t seem to have anything to sell, they are for the most part in a position to buy, but are hesitant to pull the trigger. Many of those buyers who are making offers are making very low offers. Anectodatly I’ve spoken with a handfull of buyers agents who have been working with clients for a year or more.
I have to admit, as much as I dislike my sellers getting an offer of $375,000 on a $500,000 home I feel worse for that buyers agent who can’t seem to manage thier clearly uneducated clients perception of our local market.
However, there are some homes selling and I wanted to look at the details of those properties to see what, if anything, stands out. So, I looked back at September, slicing and dicing the numbers as they say, to see what homes are selling in Forsyth County.
| Forsyth Home Sales – September 2010 |
| 178 Sold |
| 52% are under $250k |
| 4% are above $500k |
| 20% are New Construction |
| Avg. List Price: $294,892 |
| Avg. Sales Price: $262,891 |
| Distressed Properties: 30 or 22% |
| Not in a community: 7 or 4% |
| 74 have no basement |
| 44 have a finished basement |
| 60 have an unfinished basement |
| Highest List Price: $1,099,000 |
| Highest Sale Price: $930,000 |
| Lowest List Price: $19,000 |
| Lowest Sales Price: $19,000 |
| Longest time on market: 456 days |
| Shortes time on market: 1 days |
| Avg. time on market: 95 days |
So, based on the numbers above, here are some things that pop out at me. The most surprising thing I see, and the best piece of information, is that the average market time is 95 days. Those are the properties that are in great condition and priced correctly.
Very little above $500k is selling anywhere in Forsyth County. That isn’t a surprise but I didn’t expect that number to be so low, 7 properties out of 178 – 4%. No surprise that over half of all home sales fall under $250,000. I think that is also an indication why the number of homes without basements is so high. However, homes with unfinished basements outnumber finished basements. Again, price point is key and those are priced less. Buyers are going for size and value instead.
Finally, if you look at the range of prices, you can see that there are plenty of affordable homes in the first-time buyer range that afford low priced home buyers an opportunity to buy into some of the best schools in the Atlanta area. So regardless of what your price point is, you can still get great schools like South Forsyth High School, West Forsyth High School, Vickery Creek Middle and Sharon Elementary School.
Is there anything in these number I haven’t mentioned that jump out at you? Anything you would like to see? Let us know.