Kathleen Finnegan

higher inventories a welcome sign for spring buyers!

The spring home buying season is off to a stronger start than at this time last year, with modest price increases and a spike in inventory, according to realtor.com’s National Housing Trend Report for March. 467019497

The number of properties for sale  in March rose 9.5% above March 2013 levels, to 1,841,844 units, according to the report. The median list price was 5.3% higher than in March of last year, and the median age of inventory increased 22.9% above the year-ago figures, to 102 days on the market, the report’s data showed.

These figures suggest that the market is more balanced than it was in 2013, when a shortfall in available supply led to double-digit increases in many markets’ housing prices.

Having more homes on the market may mean more affordable prices for first-time and move-up buyers. Lack of inventory in 2013 led to intense competition, creating another barrier to homeownership.

“Bidding wars in many markets last year frequently elevated offer prices beyond the reach of first-time buyers who could scarcely save for the down payment,” said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Move, Inc. “While inventory is still low, the continuing annual lift in the number of homes on the market that we’ve seen over the first months of 2014 is an indicator that buying conditions this year may be notably improved from the frenzied pace of last spring.”

Thanks for reading, hope everyone has a great weekend! Oh! and by then way, if you know of anyone looking to buy or sell a home, send me their contact info and I will be happy to provide them the exceptional service people have come to expect!

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2014 at 11:31 am and is filed under Interesting Statistics. 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.