Here is one more graph that really didn't fit into that article, this one is of how long homes are taking to sell, or least how long until the leave the market. I suppose if an owner got tired of trying to sell their home and simply gave up and took their home off the market, that would also register in this graph.
For more information on homes in and around the Washington DC market, including Fallsgrove MD, please visit www.DCRealEstateMarketplace.com
A lot has changed since the late nineties, particularly for people in the homes selling business, such as Chevy Chase homes for sale. A realtor of the nineties would be equipped with a few modest tools – a car, an office phone, a fax machine, a mobile phone, and a simple website with a couple of the prominent homes featured. It took a lot of driving and legwork to make home sales happen back then. It could be 10 showings before a buyer found a place he or she liked.
Today’s buyer does extensive research before the realtor even gets a phone call. Using the local Multiple Listing Service, a buyer can read all the details of homes on the market, look at photos, watch YouTube videos, take virtual tours, and search the surrounding area using Google Maps. To keep up with the demand for knowledge, realtors need to adopt the tools of the trade and update their technology so their home sales remain steady.
For instance, the best realtors have blogs – which are the #1 referral tool these days. Realtors might write about area schools, new communities being built, local architectural styles, first time home buyer credits, area entertainment – anything that buyers can use to make more informed purchases. The average realtor spends 1-2 hours a day blogging and posts 4-5 times per week. The more content a realtor has, the more search engines love the blog… and the more search engines love the blog, the more referrals and home sales the realtor gets. The blog acts as a central hub for linking to and from social media pages like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Readers can comment, share the blog, subscribe to an RSS feed, download pamphlets, and directly contact a realtor through a successful blog.
Smartphones are an essential part of home sales these days too. There are GPS-enabled mobile apps where buyers can find out the list price of the homes for sale they drive past. Realtors can stay connected with their sites in real-time, responding to inquiries immediately via their web-surfing phones. They can add photos and videos, update social media pages, or chat with clients in real-time. For many modern realtors, there is never a moment’s rest… but at least home sales are steady.
For more information about home sales in or around the Washington DC area, including Bethesda, Potomac and Chevy Chase, please visit www.DCRealEstateMarketplace.com
Right now, in early August of 2011, there are about 60 more homes for sale in this real estate market than there were at this time last year, from about 210 homes to 270 as of this past week.
For the most recent blog post about Potomac MD homes for sale, please visit http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com/potomac-homes-for-sale-market-update
If today's median asking price for Silver Spring MD homes for sale is higher than it was two years ago, but lower than last year's value, is that good news or bad news? Does it make it easier for you to answer if I tell you that the Days On Market has the same kind of variance, with today's data point being lower then two years ago, but higher than last years?
I know, it's all a mess. But be sure to keep reading at our website for more info, on Silver Spring as well as many other areas in and around D.C.
According to the graph above, the least expensive quartile of homes for sale in the area are tracking at a median asking price of $750,000. In contract, the most expensive 25% of homes currently has a median asking price of $3,000,000, quite a difference, four times the price of the first group of homes!
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The two lines on the graph are of weekly data points as well as a rolling trend line, and they both track pretty much the same line. Two years ago, the median asking price of homes for sale in Silver Spring was right around $370,000. In the past two years, we have seen lows of $350,000 and highs of $400,000, but as of our latest measurement, we are pretty close to $380,000. Which is another way of saying that over 24 months, the median asking price for Silver Spring homes moved up only about 3%. Which isn't horrible. But it isn't great either.
If you would like more info on home values in and around the Greater DC Area, please visit http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com
