Bethesda Real Estate - video - market update for September 2011

Bethesda real estate

Bethesda real estate - market comparison with Chevy Chase and Potomac MD

At www.DCRealEstateMarketplace.com, we just wrote a short post about Bethesda real estate, but felt that we didn't have room to include this extra graph showing three local areas and how long homes are taking to leave the market.  If you want to see the post on our blog, please visit http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com/bethesda-real-estate-chevy-chase-and-potomac-comparison

The graph above shows the three areas I am most interested in, for today at least, and how long homes for sale in each community are staying for sale, on average.  Interestingly, each area now shows that homes are staying active for a shorter time than they were two years ago.  This is surprising because their prices have been falling, and there are now more homes availalbe than before.  Normally, when we see dropping prices and rising inventory, we would normally expect to see rising DOM, but not so.  Interesting.

King Farm MD Homes For Sale - Inventory Levels May Be Leveling Off

A few days ago, I wrote a short blog post about the King Farm MD homes for sale market, and how a few statistical measurements were tracking, as compared to looking at the same area a few weeks back.  One measurement that I did not include at that time was the inventory levels of that area, exactly how many homes are for sale at any given time.

I am here to correct that oversight.  This graph shows, over the past two years, just how many homes have been for sale each week in the larger Rockville community, with the assumption that if there are more homes for sale in these four zip codes, there are likely more homes for sale in King Farm as well.  And the opposite would be true, according to my assumptions, that if there are fewer homes for sale on this graph, there are likely to be fewer for sale in King Farm.

As you can clearly see from the graph above, we are close to seeing highs in inventory levels over the past two years.  But it also appears that perhaps we have turned a corner as the last few weeks have seen the number of homes for sale dropping a bit.  Maybe we've seen the worst of it?  For this year at least?  Stay tuned and we will figure it out together.

For more information about the real estate market in and around Washington DC, please visit http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com

Kentlands MD Homes For Sale - Market Update For Gaithersburg MD

A new post was just written about Kentlands MD homes for sale at http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com/kentlands-md-homes-for-sale-gaithersburg-u..., but I wanted to share one extra graph that didn't fit into the recent blog post.

This chart shows how long homes for sale in the larger community of Gaithersburg are staying on the market, as mapped out over the past two years.  In late August of 2009, it appears that 120 days was the norm, which shot up to 150 earlier this year, before settling out a bit at our current levels of almost exactly where we started, 120 days!  The trend line, shown in gold, is a bit lower, but the weekly data points are almost exactly the same!

For more information on Kentlands MD homes please visit our website at http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com

Fallsgrove MD Homes For Sale Graph - Days On Market For Rockville MD

A new post was just released at http://dcrealestatemarketplace.com/fallsgrove-md-homes-for-sale-august-update discussing a few stats from the Fallsgrove MD area, as wel as the larger Rockville MD community of which Fallsgrove is just a small part.

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

Chevy Chase Home Sales Remain Steady For Tech Savvy Realtors

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

Number of homes for sale in Potomac MD is on the rise

For the past few months, we have been watching asking prices of homes for sale in Potomac MD fall.  And then fall some more.  At the same time, inventory levels are rising, which is not a great combination at all if you are even remotely interested in selling your house.  Maybe it's ok if you are buying a home, but at some point, the markets will need to find some kind of equilibrium, and these recent trends don't really point to any kind of balance at all.

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