Home Sales Blooming Early
(March 23, 2006) Central Ohio home sales are blooming early this year. In February, the area saw a record 1,579 homes sold which is 10 percent higher than last year during the same month according to the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. This brings the total homes sold in the first two months to 2,957, nine percent higher than the first two months of 2005.
"We've experienced a very active market early this year," says Chris Reese, President of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. "The fact that we have a high inventory of homes and interest rates are inching up has drawn savvy buyers into the market. But we know from experience, some of the credit also goes to mother nature for the mild temperatures we've enjoyed this winter.
The average price of a home dropped five percent in February. "But that's because we had more homes sell in the affordable price ranges and 25 percent fewer homes in the $500,000 and above price range in February," notes Reese. Statistics indicate that homes in the $100,000-$180,000 and $200,000-$250,000 price ranges are selling well so far this year.
The number of homes on the market remains at a record high. There are currently over 15,400 residential properties for sale in the Central Ohio area ? 23 percent more than were listed last year at this time.
"There's a lot of competition out there right now," says Reese. "Sales are up _ but not enough to cover the significant increase in inventory. Therefore homes are taking longer to sell and selling for less money. Sellers need to price their home realistically if they want to compete."
3 Comments:
Found your site. Nice info. Just wondering if you are seeing the trends from March continue? I am reading stories about the downturn in the real estate market daily in NYC & DC newspapers.
With the market today becoming a buyers market as opposed not to long in the past being a sellers market presents to buyers a good investment opportunity. For realtors a more keen awareness is required in marketing and advertising properties, additionally a better understanding of site rankings, keyword placement, site saturation etc.. Simply giving youself and internet exposure is no longer enough as there are over 8 billion websites out and most of these sites have little or no ranking. With the housing market saturated with homes, most of which have been on the market the traditional avenues are not working or at least not all. Your ability to tap new markets is essential in your growth, not just advertising with someone because they come to your business as most of these people have sites with little or no visibility.
You advertise in the local paper why? Because advertising in the local paper puts your ad in front of the consumer and where do you usually advertise in the local paper? The Classifieds section, people are a product of training so when you are looking for new avenues to advertise go to the search engines and one extremely relevant keyword comes to mind, "Ohio classifieds" actually on GOOGLE alone over 40 million site vie for top ranking of this keyword.
Sites to pay attention to would be the ones that enable you to edit your own ads so that you do not have to constantly call to make modifications, also you need an advertiser that allows you to use pictures as the old adage state "A picture is worth a thousand words".
When advertising online remember one thing the title of your ad is the most important part of your ad. Do not simply put the name of your real estate company in this spot, you need to put important relevant keywords, ie. 3 bedroom home, Cleveland, Ohio.
Also include in you ad at the bottom of course the cities for which you want ranked in, ie. Akron, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio etc.
----> With some keywords there is alot of demands and thus you rankings will advance with time.
Additionally another nice feature is advertising that permits you to leave your ad up for an extended period of time.
I hope the above information assists you in deciding what avenues are out there for selling your homes.
I have just read your posting about house sales and thought your readers might find this article helpful ...
Destroy The Greatest Real Estate Myth And You’ll Come Out Better Off!
By Noel Peebles
We’ve all heard it said, “The most important thing in real estate is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!” As many will say, “it’s the reason why real estate does or does not sell.”
To that I reply, “RUBBISH, RUBBISH, RUBBISH!”
Sure, location is important, but to elevate it to the status of “the most important reason” is in my opinion, unjustified. In truth, there are 4 key factors that determine whether or not real estate sells. They are:
- PRICE
- CONDITION
- MARKETING
- LOCATION
You’ll notice I put location last on the list. Now don’t get me wrong, location is important, but to say it is the most important factor in any real estate sale is just not true! Let me explain…
Of the four, location is perhaps the least important because of one often overlooked point, which is – Location cannot be changed by anyone in the real estate negotiation process. Just think about that for a moment. Location cannot be changed by anyone in the negotiation process. So, unless you can put your house on wheels, it will stay where it is, meaning you (and your potential buyer) must accept the location as a fixed negotiating point.
Now, there are possibly a few exceptions. For example, it is not uncommon to move a house on the back of a truck from one location to another. In fact, I once watched as a multi-level hotel was lifted and moved on rails from one side of a busy city street to the other. It wasn’t a small building, so I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!
Also, without physically moving a property, it is possible in some circumstances to have a property rezoned by the local authorities. It does depend on your laws relating to where you live. However, I have seen properties triple in value when they were rezoned from ‘rural’ to ‘commercial’. But, as I say, the laws are different from country to country.
Anyway, unless you can alter the location or status of the location, you must generally accept the location as being fixed. Which brings us to the other three points – price, condition and marketing. All three are variables that you can control. Here's what I mean:
1. You can raise the condition of your property to meet your asking price. Or...
2. You can lower your price to meet the condition of your property. And then...
3. You can run a powerful marketing campaign that makes your property stand out from every other property in town.
Do you see what I mean? You can change the price, change the condition and change the marketing... but the location of your property remains static.
So, to say that LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION is the number one reason why a property does or does not sell is just a real estate myth. The truth is; price, condition and marketing rate as more important factors in the real estate negotiating process.
For more information http://www.your-real-estate-resources.com/ or http://real-estate-knowhow.blogspot.com/
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