Steiner Ranch Housing Report - November 2011

In this edition of How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch?, I review a few of the monthly sales stats, give my interpretation of them, and discuss the pros and cons of having a house on the market in November and December.

If you prefer to read instead of watch, here the transcript:

Transcript

Greetings! I’m Craig Smyser with RE/MAX Capital City. Welcome to the November 2011 edition of “How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch.” In addition to looking at the current statistics, I’ll give my opinion of the pros and cons of having your house on the market in November and December.

In October, 26 homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was an increase of 37% from the 19 that sold in October 2010. Of the 26, one was a foreclosure, one was a short sale, and 8 were new construction homes. Of last year’s 19 sales, 3 were new construction. So if you look only at existing home sales, this year was up 13%. When we are looking at small sets of data such as one month in Steiner Ranch, I don’t like to compares prices from one year to the next because they are very volatile. For the record, the average price increased 17% and median increased 32% over last October. A better way to look at these figures is to look at a longer time frame such as the first 10 months of this year compared to the first 10 months of last year. In that case, the average price is down 1.2% and the median is up 3.7%. These numbers continue to show a relatively stable market in Steiner Ranch. Last month, the sale prices in Steiner ranged from $240,000 to $755,000. The days on market continued to be low at 45 days. As always, my website allows you to look at summary and detailed data for each Steiner Ranch neighborhood. Simply go to RealEstateInAustin.com and click on the neighborhood home sale data tab.

A common question this time of year is whether or not it is worthwhile to be on the market during November and December, a traditionally slower time of year. On the negative side, there are fewer buyers out at this time of year and, therefore, fewer homes sold. This can lead to another negative if it doesn’t sell because the number of days on market will be increase and as more buyers enter the market in the early part of the year, some may wonder why it has been on the market so long. As a Realtor who also represents buyers, I factor that in and don’t get too concerned if a house has already been on the market for 90-120 days come February simply because of the time of year. The same house on the market for the same length of time in July would likely raise some questions, though.

There are a number of factors on the positive side. 1) the buyers who are out looking are generally very serious. This is not the time of year for casual buyers to look because everyone is so busy. So while you have fewer showings, they are more generally more qualified buyers. 2) For a lot of homeowners, Christmas decorations make the house look warmer and more inviting than other times of year so, in some cases, the house may actually show better. 3) The inventory of homes for sale at this time of year is lower than spring and summer so you have less competition. Personally, I would have no problem listing my own house over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to

contact me at 512-650-7300, by email, or the form below.

Thanks for watching “How’s The Market In Steiner Ranch?”

 Statistics based upon information from ACTRIS for the periods cited.