Are we poised to come out of a temporary lull or have national trends started to reach here into DeKalb County? Those questions linger as we come out of a March that was lackluster, at best. But whatever the numbers say, people continue to buy and sell real estate. When you’re ready, it’s always the right time.
RealTracs figures for March shows residential sales held even with February, with 14 homes sold here each of the last two months. Average selling price was down, considerably, though: $124,235 for March, against $179,985 in February.
Compare March sales with those for the same month last year and you start to scratch your head: Is our spring home selling season just getting off to a slow start?
In 2007, 31 homes were sold in March, more than double the 14 sold here last month. Last month’s average prices were also down a little more ethan $10K. It’s worth noting it took less time to sell those homes—an average of 86 days on the market— compared with 94 for March 2007. But, but there’s more inventory out there: an average of 220 active listings in March 2008, compared with 190 a year ago.
Things look much better for land, lot and farm sales, despite the abundance of available property. During March, 552 parcels were for sale in DeKalb County, 26 percent more than the 438 active listings at the same time last year. Land sales actually registered a 23 percent gain, with 16 parcels sold this year, compared with 13 during March 2007.
But, the sales price was down this year by more than half. The average land parcel changed hands for $43,443 last month, $96,807 the same month a year ago.
What does all this mean? We’ll have to look ahead to see. Clearly, there’s always buyers and sellers, whatever the trends.
