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You probably have felt it in the air over the last 90 days-home prices are coming down. Ah the good old days when a home would come onto the market and be sold in less than a week with multiple offers. Not happening now. Our Windermere economist is indicating that, on average, home prices are down 7-10% over this time last year.
No need to panic, because mortgage rates are low and will probably fall a little more over the next month, so that keeps buyers in the market. There is no one reason for this transition in prices. Perhaps prices just got too high for buyers to qualify or feel comfortable with their monthly mortgage payment? Perhaps the bulk of buyers have already purchased and are not being replaced at the same crazy rate that they were over the preceding seven years? Perhaps there are so many new rental apartments now with managers offering major incentives to prospective tenants that that has lessened demand, not to mention that as rents become much less than mortgage payments, folks may decide to stay in their apartments. Perhaps they are locked into a one year lease with ten more months to go? And we cannot forget the unusually higher volume of homes that came on the market in late April and continued through June which contributed to the price decline.
Despite the above, I am still very bullish on the future of Queen Anne popularity and pricing. If we follow the usual annual cycle, I expect this market to continue at basically this value level until next Spring when we will be off to the races again from March-June(or longer)!
Don’t forget: WS Excise taxes are going up starting January 2020 and really impact homes closing for $1.5M or more. Please see the attachment for details.
There were very few homes that sold over their list prices in August, but there was one standout: 1407 Bigelow was listed at $1.495M and sold for $1.7M.
And that’s the way Steve sees it…Click here to view report, and Click here to view the current Excise Tax rates.
Make it another great month!
