Real estate activity has been busy this summer with more homes coming on the market than listed in the spring time. In April there were 1215 homes for sale compared to July with 1572 homes on the market (a 30% increase.) Roughly 30% of the homes are in contract, indicating a balanced or “neutral” market. In neutral markets, typically, interest rates are affordable and the number of buyers and sellers in the marketplace are equalized. The scales don’t tip in either direction, meaning the market is normal without experiencing volatile swings.

Agents have seen an increase in multiple offers and all-cash buyers this summer. When homes are priced competitively or below market value, they sell very quickly, often with multiple offers. If they’re not priced well, they tend to sit on the market for quite some time. However, selling real estate still depends on location, condition of house and price.

Many of my clients ask me, “Have we hit the bottom?” Robert Shiller, MacroMarkets’ chief economist and co-founder, recently said, “A significant majority of our panelists believe that the bottom for home prices arrived in the first quarter or will arrive sometime before year-end. Despite persistent macroeconomic uncertainty and unprecedented housing market dysfunction, almost two-thirds of the panelists see the U.S. residential real estate market as at an historic turning point.”

Although no one can predict the bottom, real estate has picked up significantly this summer which gives us all hope that real estate is improving.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Real Estate Update . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.