Real Estate in Durham with Sidetrips to Chapel Hill and elsewhere in the Triangle
Before we tear into our own Thanksgiving feast, all of us at BCRE want to take a moment to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. When we list the things we are thankful for, our faithful readership is certainly on that list. See you all after our post-dinner nap!
Where did Fall go? two weeks ago it was still Summer and now . . . well, it’s not exactly Winter, but it’s a lot closer.
For all of Durham County there were 1,947 homes listed for sale at the end of October – a drop of almost 100 listings. October saw 190 contracts close, a drop of 19 closings. Using October figures, it would take 10.2 months to work through our current inventory, which is an increase of a half-month over the September figure.
In South Durham 686 homes were listed for sale at the end of October - a drop of 29 listings. 67 sales closed in October, an increase of five closings from September. It would take 10.2 months like October to work our way through all the available homes, which is an improvement of 1.3 months from September’s figure
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 | 53 | 2 | 26.5 [-0.5] | $63,858 100% of list price |
| Hope Valley Farms | 58 | 2 | 29.0 [+22.2] | $182,125 95% of list price |
| Woodlake | 13 | 3 | 6.5 [+0.5] | $217,333 97% of list price |
| Parkwood | 20 | 5 | 4.0 | $135,745 97% of list price |
| Chancellors Ridge | 12 | 3 | 4.0 [-13.0] | $325,000 96% of list price |
| Grandale | 3 | 1 | 3.0 | $375,000 99% of list price |
| Audubon Park | 16 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Falconbridge | 11 | 1 | 11.0 [-1.0] | $266,000 95% of list price |
| Fairfield | 13 | 2 | 6.5 | $343,000 99% of list price |
| Lochside | 8 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
| Marydell Estates | 3 | 0 | N/A | N/A |
[Random fact: The two sales in Woodcroft were both small condos - nothing else sold in Woodcroft in October]
So this month we saw a decent reduction in the number of listings, and a smaller reduction in closings [and an increase in S. Durham closings]. That isn’t entirely surprising, as some sellers started pulling their homes off the market in the last week of October. Those sellers have decided they don’t want to market their homes over the Holidays, but they will be back some January and February.Come next year when we are talking about a rush of new inventory in February, remember this.
[Oh, another piece of support for this -- on November 1st 115 listings expired. That was over 5% of the total listings available]
What is also worth noting is how spread out the closings were. In the past, we have seen the “Big Three” of Woodcroft, Hope Valley Farms and Parkwood with the lion’s share of closings, but that isn’t the case this month. In fact, the “Big 3″ this month were Parkwood [5], the Hills At Southpoint [4] and Chancellor’s Ridge/Woodlake/Wyndcross [all with 3].
New construction didn’t keep up the blistering pace of last month, but The Hills At Southpoint did have 4 closings, so it wasn’t completely dead either.
What’s up for November? Closings will drop significantly if for no other reason than the lack of business days available to close in. This happened in November and December of last year as well. Also, we can expect more sellers to pull their homes off the market and relist in 2012, which will dampen the impact of the lower closing numbers.
There are still good reasons for having a home on the market today, even with the colder weather and the smaller pool of [more serious] buyers. 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. Happy Thanksgiving.
