Lancaster County Real Estate Market Report January 13, 2010

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to this year. The week before Christmas turned out to be very busy for me, and we enjoyed helping three households select homes and enter agreements to buy them, which helped two households and a builder be able to move forward with their plans.

Here are the numbers from my January 7, 2010 searches in the Lancaster County MLS:

Active Listings UA Listings Ratio Prior year Ratio

Jan 7, 2010 2,772 413 14.89% 16.05%

Dec 7, 2009 2,873 439 15.28% 18.19%

Nov 4, 2009 2,907 641 22.05% 20.43%

Oct 6, 2009 2,882 759 26.34% 22.65%

Sep 8, 2009 2,884 773 26.80% 24.12%

Jul 7, 2009 2,761 796 28.83% 29.17%

May 7, 2009 2,845 801 28.15% 34.95%

Mar 7, 2009 2,812 545 19.38% 31.00%

Jan 3, 2009 2,660 427 16.05% 21.29%

Here is a list of the number of Active Listings, Under Agreement listings, the ratio of the two, and the date I reviewed the MLS information. This covers the years from 2001 through 2010. The Approximate # of Months Supply figure simply takes the number of active listings and divides it by the number under agreement. A more precise calculation would use the actual number of homes that went under agreement in a given period of time, but this method gives a similar picture of the market.

Date # Active # UA Ratio Approx. # Months Supply

01/11/2001	2333	539	23.10%	4.3
01/07/2002	1964	676	34.42%	2.9
01/04/2003	2235	1087	48.64%	2.1
01/07/2004	1485	1144	77.04%	1.3
01/19/2005	1430	1219	85.24%	1.2
01/09/2006	1489	706	47.41%	2.1
01/08/2007	2041	678	33.22%	3.0
01/05/2008	2273	484	21.29%	4.7
01/03/2009	2660	427	16.05%	6.2
01/07/2010	2772	413	14.90%	6.7

Over the years you can see the market strengthening from 2001 until 2005, and then begin to weaken substantially. A year ago I predicted that we hit bottom in terms of activity, and realize now that wasn't correct. (A hazard of making such predictions) This year again I see positive things in the market and expect improvement over 2009 in measurements such as number of homes sold and a shortening of time on the market. The Lancaster County Association of Realtors publication, House Calls, reports in the December 2009 issue that the National Association of Realtors® forecasts 2010 home sales are expected to be 15 percent over 2009. Time will tell if this is correct or not, but overall I see it as a good time to purchase a home.

House Calls also reports in the January 2010 issue that home sales for the month of November 2009 were 49.8 percent higher than November 2008. This is the fourth consecutive month that we saw more homes sold than the same period in the prior year. House Calls also reports that 39.2 percent of homes sold in a month or less, compared to 24.7 percent in November 2008, indicating that the aamount of time homes are on the market is shortening.

Once again, this time of year tends to have fewer active buyers and sellers, but those who are active are generally feeling a strong need to move for some reason or another. There is talk of interest rates heading up in the Spring due to the Federal Reserve changing strategy and focus, in an attempt to avoid inflation. Astute buyers are trying to lock in ahead of that.

If you haven't heard about the $8,000 tax credit, please contact me and I'll be happy to forward information about it to you.

On January 7 we resumed operations at the Prudential Homesale Services Group Kiosk at Park City in the Boscov mall. In the three shifts I've been there since then the flow of people stopping to talk has been good. There are people wanting to move.

If you know someone who is thinking of buying or selling, please recommend they call me. I'll also be happy to contact them if that is appropriate.

Thank You!

Prepared by: J. Merle Sollenberger, GRI, CRS, Associate Broker, Realtor®

Prudential Homesale Services Group

150 North Point Boulevard, Lancaster, PA 17601

717-560-9100 www.msollenberger.com msollenberger@topproducer.com

Licensed in PA

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