Arlington Update

There is a disconnect happening in the market today. With all of the news reports being glum one would expect that in Arlington things are bad. That is not true, in fact, this past week 13 properties have gone under agreement with the average days on market decreasing from last year at the same time.  When days on market decrease that means that properties are selling faster and sellers are able to maintain their pricing better.

I am surprised by the activity this week having received calls from potential buyers asking when more property will come on the market. The increase may be due to the perception that when the Fed lowers interest rates that means that mortgage rates go down (there is no connection between the two) and that money may be cheaper (it is!)  MFL

I was at the Starbucks in the center this morning (waiting and waiting of course!)  and as I was in line I looked around at the other customers and as I was thinking about all of the news I’ve been reading about an impending recession (or are we in one I don’t know!) I noticed that most customers were spending a lot of money ($3+ for drink and$3+ for food) and realized that if one uses the local Starbucks as a indicator that we are actually in pretty good shape despite what is being sold as news to us.  To further my analysis I also saw another real estate broker writing an offer to purchase a home!  If that didn’t warm my heart I don’t know what will!  Like politics, our economy is local…  Does anyone else have any anecdotal evidence as to how our economy is doing?

Hi Folks, We had another busy weekend with some open houses reporting 20- 30 guests. It seems that houses that are new to the market are getting better attendance than houses that have been on while. The properties going under agreement (pending)  activity bounced up this past week to 9 properties as compared to the prior week of only 4 houses (This includes all types of properties). As you can see in the following chart, inventory is down from the same week last year. (all data from MLSPIN).   Thats it for this week.  Let me know if there is any other market info you would like to see. Mark

What’s the Arlington market going to be like this year? What direction will prices move in? Where will interest rates go? How will buyers react to houses that have been on the market for a while? All good questions! Of course only time will tell what the answers will be. What we know is true is that in every market there are buyers and sellers, the key is to match up those folks and move to a successful sale! I’ll check back in on Monday am for the weekend open house report. Happy hunting!