How Long Does it Take to Sell a Home In Boiling Springs?
by Rob on May 18, 2010
in Boiling Springs Market Conditions
Days On Market for Spartanburg Home Sales
This is the question everyone wants to know when selling a home. “How long will it take to sell my home?” Beware of the person who has the fast and easy answer for you. Unless they are willing to buy it themselves the fact of the matter is that no one can really know for sure. What separates a salesperson from a consultant is the use of market facts.
In 2008 homes that sold took an average of about 120 days to sell, or 4 months. 2008 was just the beginning of the credit squeeze put on by lenders and loans became more and more difficult to get as large investors began to realize that their mortgage backed securities were not what they were told they were. Fast forward to 2010 and we have those same large mortgage investors running from mortgage loan investments. Because things got so bad, the government stepped in to buy mortgage loans as credit became tighter and tighter. As a result, Days on Market (DOM) for homes that sold increased from 120 days in 2008 to about 160 days today. Experts predict that DOM will increase going forward as the government recently announced that they will no longer be buyers of mortgages in the secondary market. Speculation is that interest rates will have to rise to entice large investors back into buying these investments. Increased interest rates will make the monthly cost of homes more expensive forcing some home buyers into smaller homes thus shrinking the buyer pool for larger homes and increasing the DOM for those homes.
However, the Spartanburg Board of Realtors data above only includes the Days On Market for homes that sold. What about the homes that did not sell?
A more complete look at the market will have to include, well, the entire market. When calculating this number we really can’t call it a Days On Market because the property might still be on the market. A better description is “absorption rate”, or how long will it take to sell all of the current single family homes on the market.
Spartanburg county currently 3,066 single family homes for sale with 2,590 selling within the last 12 months. This equates to a 14.2 month supply of homes on the market. That means that a buyer in todays home market has a LOT of choices to choose from.
Here is the inventory of single family homes expressed in months for selected areas:
Spartanburg County Boiling Springs Inman Eagle Pointe Sub. Hanging Rock Sub.
14.2 months 11.4 months 11.5 months 15.7 months 6.24 months
As you can clearly see once we factor homes that did not sell into the equation we see that the true time on market to sell can be much, much longer then the 160 days for homes that DID sell. Another note is that when we look at a smaller area like a subdivision the current numbers can change from one month to the next. Hanging Rock appears to sell quickly but this is due to the new construction sales boosting sales rates in our calculation. Meanwhile Eagle Pointe, with no new construction, appears to sell at a slower rate. This is due to a few “pending sales” that if counted as sold would have lowered the inventory rate down to 12 months.
The bottom line is that there are more homes on the market today then there was yesterday and that has specific implications for both buyers and sellers. If you are to successfully compete with other sellers on the market then it is more important then ever to employ an up to date, results-based marketing program to sell your home. We are selling almost all of our listed homes faster than the market averages and are bringing the buyer over 50% of the time in 2010. As always feel free to call me for help when buying or selling.
Keep Looking Up,
Rob
