Buyers

Central Pennsylvania Real Estate Market Statistics For February 2019

A monthly post to keep you up-to-date on what is happening in Lancaster, Dauphin, and York Counties

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Settled Units – Virtually unchanged from last year at this time. On a national level, settled units dipped over 4% in the fifty largest metro areas so our area stacks up better than the national average.

Average Sales Price – This number continues to climb at a steady rate; up almost 4% from last year which mirrors what is happening across the country.

Median Days to Sell – Twenty-five days on the market is a significant drop from last year and far exceeds what the majority of the rest of the country is experiencing.

Average Interest Rate – Almost the same as last year. Predicting mortgage interest rates is a tricky business, but most experts predict that rates will hold fairly steady until at least the spring home buying season is over.

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Absorption Rates are the rates at which available homes are sold in a specific real estate market and price range during a given time period.  It is calculated by dividing the total number of available homes by the average number of sales per month.  The rate represents the number of months it would take to clear out available inventory if no other homes came on the market.

Homes that are competitively priced under $300K are selling at a rapid pace which accounts for the extremely low absorption rates. Multiple offers on these homes continue to be the norm. Head north of $300K and the market becomes relatively balanced. However, the luxury market over a half a million is ultra competitive. Sellers who are in this price category should heed their real estate agent’s advice regarding list price because of the abundance of inventory that is sitting.

Click here to access Dauphin and York County Statistics
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Trend 7: The Digital End-To-End Real Estate Transaction Dream

Closer than Ever, But Still Far Away

This is the fourth blog post in a series of ten that covers the trends that will shape the residential real estate industry in 2019 and beyond according to the publication, Swanepoel Trends Report 2019.  The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this post belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer or the publication cited.

The real estate transaction has long been an analog process that has, until recently, been more than adequate. Real estate agents who could manage the plethora of different systems and personalities (i.e. mortgage, inspection, title, insurance, etc.) could excel in the business.

More companies, both inside and outside our industry, are now recognizing that the real estate transaction is broken. Too many unknowns; too many systems; too many parts that don’t talk to each other; too much duplication – – – and none of them create an exceptional customer experience. But that is changing.

Continue reading →
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Lancaster County’s May 2018 Real Estate Market – By the Numbers

May is always a month of transition.  Winter is definitely behind us but summer is not quite here.  Some nights you can sleep with the windows open to breathe in the refreshingly, cool air; some nights it’s downright frigid and the windows are closed.

All across Lancaster, small signs are appearing right before our eyes that point to what lies ahead of us in just a few short weeks – – like the corn sprouting from small seedlings in hundreds of fields across the county.

Is the real estate market sprouting and following suit?  Let’s look at the numbers . . .

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2018 05 May Market Stats - Avg Sales Price

Average Sales Price – We cracked the two and a quarter mark for the first time ever.  Up 7% from last May.  This healthy rise is mainly due to extremely low inventory levels which don’t appear to be going up anytime soon. Continue reading →

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A Real Estate User’s Guide To the Government Shutdown

As Democrats and Republicans fall all over each other trying to blame the other side of the aisle for the government shutdown, should you be concerned if you’re involved with a real estate transaction right now or in the near future?  Umm – it depends.

Since the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a government agency, any borrower who applies for or, has applied to get an FHA or VA mortgage will be impacted.  Those temporary electronic highway signs on the side of the road that read, ‘Incident Ahead – Expect Major Delays’ applies here.

Since the vast majority of HUD workers were sent home early Saturday morning and they’re operating on skeleton crews, virtually no one is there to answer calls/emails, process paperwork or grant loan approvals.  UGH!!! Continue reading →

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Lancaster County’s December 2017 Real Estate Market – By the Numbers

Ahh – –  December!  As the year wound down, the cold, frigid winds of winter blew through Lancaster County.  This is the best time of year to reflect back on the year that was and to think and plan for the new one.  Now grab a pen and paper and sit down by the warm fireplace and get busy.

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2017 12 December Market Stats - Average Sales Price

Not much change from last December’s average sales price.  As we will see at the end of this blog post, the final numbers for the year were solid and steady which indicates the real estate market was healthy. Continue reading →

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A REALTORS® Guide To Engagement on Social Media

Since social media websites began, the conversation among REALTORS® has raged on as to its importance in the business of real estate.  Five years ago, engaging on social media was considered by many in our industry to be a colossal waste of time and resources.

The detractors claimed that viewing pictures of what someone had for dinner last night or playing Candy Crush was never going to help an agent grow their business.  Well, I think we can all agree that if an agent uses social media for those purposes, the naysayers are absolutely right.

However, research groups are now using metrics to assess the importance of social media because we now have a history of how its significance has evolved over time – and the data supporting its impact is indisputable.

In its latest survey of home buyers and sellers¹, the National Association of REALTORS® asked the question of thousands of consumers who recently bought and sold real estate, “How important is agent communications?”  Here is the chart outlining the findings:

Social Media Importance
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Thirteen percent of consumers now say it is important for their agent to be active on social media.  This may not seem like a big number but consider that when the same question was asked of consumers four years ago, the number was 3%.  For those that don’t want to crunch the numbers that’s a 433% jump in a relatively short period of time.

So now that we’ve determined that there might be something to this social media ‘stuff’, how does an agent use it to their advantage? Continue reading →

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