I'm a broker with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Kansas City Homes. I see a need out there for some good, honest facts for customers and agents.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
KC Real Estate Market Activity
We’ve been seeing a few more listings coming on the market, which is a great thing for those…
Some Tuesday Thoughts…
I started to pull my weekly showing stats for you, but it looks like showings are holding steady throughout the Kansas City metro area, so the chart looks very similar to last week.
Instead, I wanted to focus a bit on the frustration level of some of our wonderful sellers. Most sellers have recently come down significantly on their price in order to get their home sold before winter. Now that they’ve received a few ‘lowball’ offers from buyers and signed a contract, the buyers have started to nit-pick them on inspection items. Just a word of warning here, some sellers have reached a boiling point on their frustration with (you) as a buyer by the time they’ve reduced their home price enough to make it attractive to you and negotiated even more to get a signed contract in hand.
Take another look at the ‘deal’ you’ve secured on that property and ask yourself these questions. Is it really worth fighting over the small stuff on the inspection? Could you possibly lose that deal of a house because the sellers are tired of giving in?
Inventory is low. Home prices are on the rise. Is it worth the risk? Only (you) the buyer can answer that. Think before you nit-pick.
…and in other shocking news, showings were up this week. Wait…what? It may seem like the market has been pretty quiet lately, but the report we received today from Centralized Showing Service tells us another story. In the Clay County area (101-108) we can see that we gained about 60 showings over last week. Good news for most buyers, though, there’s quite a bit of inventory in rural areas that’s mostly just sitting there with very few showings. These frustrated sellers will either be pulling off the market until it picks back up or drastically reducing their prices.
If you’re looking for a home in the more urban areas, we’re still hearing of multiple offers.
Either way, it’s still a good time to JUMP if you’re planning to.
We’re There!
Last week, for the end of April and beginning of May, the Clay County, MO showings were up above 2000! I knew we were going to be hitting it soon as the activity in our area has increased week over week (not counting the weekend of Easter).
We’ve even had quite a bit of rain and stormy weather lately, but that’s not stopping the serious home buyers.
In the coming weeks, we may see a slight drop as this is graduation/travel time for many and there’s a couple of travelling holidays in the month of May, including Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. This is only a forecast that I really hope doesn’t happen. I’ve been loving the activity around the office lately and there’s several happy sellers that are more than ready to move on.
Keep it coming KC!!
Clay/Ray Counties
Clay/Ray County sales were up for the month by 19.3% from 2011. Units were at 303 versus 254 last year. Year to date, unit sales are up 24.3%, with 599 units this year versus 482 last year.
The average sales price for the month was up 11.1% from last year, with an average price of $132,539. Year to date, the average price is up 5.7%. The average price is $133,111, versus $125,957 last year.
New listings were up 103 units to 488 or 26.8% from last year’s 385 units. Inventory is down 14.8% from last year and is running at 1,980 units. Inventory is up 65 units from last month.
