Edwardsville, IL

Edwardsville Illinois Real Estate Market Report YTD Through August 2011

Year-to-date through August 2011, 202 homes have been sold in Edwardsville, Illinois. That's down 13.3 percent from the 233 homes sold by the end of August in 2010.

Right now, 186 listings are currently under contract, down five percent from pending sales on the books year-to-date in 2010.

The average selling price in Edwardsville through August 2011 is $217,140, just 2.8 percent lower than 2010.

Average days on the market have risen to 170, up 16.5 percent from 2010 when the average house in Edwardsville stayed on the market 146 days.

What does this mean? Fewer homes have sold during the first half of the year in Edwardsville, but pending sales have risen to within five percent of the prior year, a good sign. The average selling price is holding its own with less than a three percent dip from last year. And homes are taking longer to sell with the average number of days on the market experiencing a fairly significant increase.

So, if you're selling your home, make sure it stands out against the competition in price and condition so you can help it sell efficiently. If you're a buyer, now is the time to make a decision and place an offer before prices, which are stabilizing, rise and you've missed your best opportunities.

Edwardsville Illinois Real Estate Market Report YTD Through August 2011

Year-to-date through August 2011, 202 homes have been sold in Edwardsville, Illinois. That's down 13.3 percent from the 233 homes sold by the end of August in 2010.

Right now, 186 listings are currently under contract, down five percent from pending sales on the books year-to-date in 2010.

The average selling price in Edwardsville through August 2011 is $217,140, just 2.8 percent lower than 2010.

Average days on the market have risen to 170, up 16.5 percent from 2010 when the average house in Edwardsville stayed on the market 146 days.

What does this mean? Fewer homes have sold during the first half of the year in Edwardsville, but pending sales have risen to within five percent of the prior year, a good sign. The average selling price is holding its own with less than a three percent dip from last year. And homes are taking longer to sell with the average number of days on the market experiencing a fairly significant increase.

So, if you're selling your home, make sure it stands out against the competition in price and condition so you can help it sell efficiently. If you're a buyer, now is the time to make a decision and place an offer before prices, which are stabilizing, rise and you've missed your best opportunities.

Some people want a three-car garage in their new home.

Others want four bedrooms.

Or maybe a big kitchen with granite countertops.

But did you ever think about what your fur kids might want?

I bet they'd like you to get a house with a fenced back yard. Here's a good place to start the search for a dog-friendly home. If you see something you'd like to look at in person, give me a call at 618-791-8007.

Click here for a list of homes for sale in Edwardsville with fenced yards.

Click here for a list of homes for sale in Glen Carbon with fenced yards.

Click here for a list of homes for sale in Maryville with fenced yards.

Click here for a list of homes for sale in Troy with fenced yards.

Click here for a list of homes for sale in Collinsville with fenced yards.

If you'd like to appeal your Madison County, Illinois home's assessment -- that includes homes in Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Troy, Collinsville, Granite City, etc. -- you only have until September 12, 2011 to get the paperwork and supporting materials to the Madison County Board of Review.

The Madison County Board of Review requires that homeowners who want to file a complaint must fill out a form listing a wide variety of information about the property in question and also submit supporting documents such as comparable sales, or construction cost, or an appraisal or an operating statement for the last two years for income property.

If you've just recently purchased your home, you can include copies of your closing statement showing a value lower than your home's current assessment.

Here's a link to the Madison County, Illinois website from which you can download the Residential Complaint for Assessment Year 2011 form. The form also includes an instruction sheet that will answer many of the questions you might have about the process.

What are grounds for a residential assessment appeal?

According to Madison County, they include: over valuation, unequal treatment in the assessment process, contention of law, property that has been assessed twice in the year or condemnation. There also is a blank for "other" in case your situation is not listed.

If you so desire, you also can tell the county that your assessment is not high enough versus similar properties on the same form. I bet most people aren't rushing to do that.

Good luck with your appeal!

I answered a consumer question from the real estate website Trulia today that has me wondering.

The consumer asked for more details about a property here in Edwardsville, Illinois.

I searched our MLS (multiple listing service) and, finding nothing, searched the public records in Madison County for that address.

That's where I found the property and noted that it had been sold in the last couple of years. I replied that the home was not currently listed for sale in our MLS and told the consumer about the prior sales history.

Here's where the story gets interesting...

I received a reply from the consumer asking me where I got that information because the property was HIS and it WAS currently for sale. He had been asking questions on Trulia trying to check out web traffic and activity on it.

That's when I put my detective hat on and dug a little deeper...

Turns out he does have his ILLINOIS property listed. But it's listed with a broker in CALIFORNIA! (Last time I checked, California was 2000 miles and two time zones away from Edwardsville, Illinois.)

The California broker has the property listed on Trulia, but not via the local MLS that all brokers in Southwestern Illinois are using -- the Southwestern Illinois Regional MLS. So it looks to all of us -- and subsequently to all of our buyers -- as if his property is not listed at all.

I sent one last message to him to provide the final answer to his question, suggesting that it would be more appropriate to ask his own agent about why his home is not selling and is not in the local MLS.

I don't know if I will hear back from this seller in the future. Perhaps when his contract with the California broker ends and he wants Illinois representation to sell his Illinois home, he'll get in touch. I hope so. I'd love to help.

The moral to this mystery? If you want to sell your house in Edwardsville, Illinois, please use a broker who will list your property in the MLS that all of the real estate professionals in the region use to find properties for their buyers.