The past few weeks I have noticed a major surge in my business and I’m sure I’m not the only agent that has experienced this. Buyers are gearing up to buy, which is a common event come spring time every year. What has been unexpected though, is the amount of activity in the market. Many new listings that are looking really good for their price ranges coupled with the still low interest rates and we’ve got quite a match on our hands. Any listing priced right is immediately going Pending and i’m not talking about a week, more like 1 day. My buyer clients can confirm that you have to be ready to jump when something good comes up or you will miss out!

The latest market action report came out last week. Closed sales were up 17.5% in February 2012 compared to February 2011 and pending sales grew 32.5%. That’s pretty remarkable! Average sale price for February 2012 rose 4.3% compared to February 2011. Month to month, comparing January 2012 to February 2012, average sale price went up from $249,100 to $255,100 (2.4%) and the median sale price rose from $207,500 to $211,000 (1.7%). While it’s not great for buyers to hear that prices may be rising again, it is good overall for the market. And we may finally be returning to a more stable and healthy market…we can hope.

by Betsy Ballantyne (Graph from rmlsweb.com)