Real Estate in Durham with Sidetrips to Chapel Hill and elsewhere in the Triangle
For those of you who can’t take my word for it, the Triangle Multiple Listing Service released its analysis of the Triangle housing market. . Overall, they show a market still righting itself – sales are down, but listings are down by more, which in the long run will lead to more stability. For those of you who can’t get enough of numbers and analysis, here are the links;
For those of you out and about this afternoon, please visit my Open House at 3231 E Geer Street between 3PM and 5PM. If you do, you can look at this 2 bedroom/1 bath sitting on just under a half-acre of land. It’s got all the peace and quiet of the county, but just a short trip away from Duke, Research Triangle Park, and Brier Creek
Listed at $50,000, this could be a great opportunity for an investor or a first-time home buyer interested in converting a little effort into instant equity. I hope to see you there!
Here are some more details about 3231 E Geer Street
This week, the weather definitely turned. Did September housing sales do the same? Let’s take a look.
For all of Durham County there were 2,030 homes listed for sale at the end of September – a drop of about 2.5%. September saw 209 contracts close, a drop of about 3.5%. Using September figures, it would take 9.7 months to work through our current inventory an increase of 2.2 months over the August figure.
In South Durham 717 homes were listed for sale at the end of September – again a drop of about 2.5%. 62 sales closed in September, a drop of almost a third from August. It would take 11.5 months like September to work our way through all the available homes.
Here’s the updated neighborhood information, with some of our new neighborhoods.
| Total Available Listings | Total Closed Sales | Adsorption Rate [in months] | Avg Sale Price | |
| Woodcroft | 54 | 2 | 27.0 [+20.4] | $144,000 97% of list price |
| Hope Valley Farms | 62 | 9 | 6.8 [-3.2] | $208,500 97% of list price |
| Woodlake | 18 | 3 | 6.0 [+2.2] | $186,917 98% of list price |
| Parkwood | 23 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Chancellors Ridge | 17 | 1 | 17.0 [-2.0] | $142,500 95% of list price |
| Grandale | 3 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Audubon Park | 15 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Falconbridge | 12 | 1 | 12.0 [+5.0] | $165,000 92% of list price |
| Fairfield | 14 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Lochside | 10 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Marydell Estates | 3 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
Last month I predicted a dropoff on closings as the summer winds down. We certainly saw that in September as listings dropped a little bit, and closings dropped significantly. I would expect more of the same in October as the weather cools and the market starts towards it’s winter hibernation. Buyers are still out there, and they are the serious buyers, but most of the casual buyers are starting to head towards the exits until Spring
The most interesting thing about the September numbers is the number of new construction homes closing in September. fully 25 % of homes closed in September were built in 2010 or 2011, including 5 sales in Wyndmoor at the Park, 3 at Stafford Lakes and 3 at Foxwood Manor. That’s not entirely surprising as most of these homes were probably put under contract in April or May — just as the 2011 market was heating up. It must, however, bring a small smile to a section of the market that has taken a beating for a while.
What’s up for October? More of the same, I suspect. Closings will drop again, but not by a whole lot. More importantly, closings will continue to out pace new listings allowing us to slowly work through some of the backlog we have had built up in 2009 and 2010. hopefully that will put us in better shape come 2012.
There is still time, but not much, to take advantage of this improved homebuying season. If you are interested in seeing how your home would fare on the market, or just want to see some of the homes available, please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. See you
in November.
