Spartanburg County Home Showings for 2010
by Rob on July 16, 2010
in Boiling Springs Market Conditions, Spartanburg Real Estate Market Conditions, Uncategorized
A precursor to Spartanburg home sales is the number of home showings in the Spartanburg market place.
This chart is a large sample of showings from an appointment setting service that schedules a significant amount of showings in the Spartanburg market. Therefore, it can be considered an accurate sample size for the Spartanburg county home showing rate.
Month % Change from 2009
January -1%
February -7.9%
March +31.7%
April +19.6%
May -19.5%
June -16.1%
January and February home showings were down from 2009 1% to 7.9% respectively. Then March and April saw home buyers come out in droves to lock in the government tax credits for new and existing home buyer purchases. Those who know me know that I was working 12 to 14 hour days 6.5 days a week just trying to keep up with my clients. During this time call back times increased and bedtime story reading was taken over by my wife.
When the tax credit expired on April 30 we saw what all professional marketers already know. Irrespective if your product is a short or long term durable good, promotions pull consumers forward in the market. It creates very little NEW demand that did not already exist in the market. I have seen this many times when analyzing promotions for Bristol-Myers Squibb Herbal Essences line of shampoos to even infant nutritionals (think baby food here like Enfamil) and many other product categories from Michelin Tires to skin care.
To prove this marketing principle we saw May and June showings drop -19.5% and -16.1% respectively from 2009 home showings! Here is the average number of showings for each house for sale in Spartanburg. Of course there are more forces at work here then just the sobering effect of the tax credit highs injected into the real estate market. The US economy is weaker this year than last year and home buyers are more price sensitive in 2010 then in 2009.
Interestingly is that interest rates hit record lows during these same 2 months indicating that the 2nd half of 2010 will be a slower sales period compared to 2009 as I suggested in my 2010 Spartanburg real estate outlook on January 5.
The take away from all this is that if you are looking to sell your home the best time to sell it is today, not tomorrow. Feel free to call me to determine a pricing strategy that will sell your home today for the most money possible.
Keep Looking Up
Rob
