Krista Fuchs Chester County Realtor(484) 459-8025 Home Buying and Selling

Real Estate in Chester County has softened in certain areas and price ranges but we certainly haven't suffered like some of the other parts of the country.  Most of the softening in our market is in the higher price ranges.  Not only have the prices softened but homes in the higher price ranges need to shine with the extras in order to sell.  Let's take a look and see how the homes in the $600,000-$800,000 price range did for the first 3 quarters of 2009.

Unfortunately you can see from the graph that homes in Chester County in the $600K-$800K price range had less sales this year than in the past 3 years.  It even looks as though this price range sold at a lower rate than in the other three years as well.  Let's see if these Sellers lowered their prices from previous years to help their cause.

Interestingly enough the average sales price is consistent with the past three years.   I'm sure if these Sellers lowered their prices they would have seen more sales. 

These numbers represent ALL of Chester County so if you would like me to research what is going on in your township specifically I would be happy to do that for you.  And you can find the data for the price ranges of $400K-$600K, $200K-$400K and $0-$200K by clicking on the links. 

Krista Fuchs, Realtor.  Giving You The Attention You Deserve.

I can always be reached directly at (484) 459-8025.

Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

(484) 875-2600

The Real Estate market in 2009 for Chester County was not all bad, for sure.  My previous posts on the $0-$200K price range and the $200K-$400K price range showed that.  As we get into the higher price ranges we do see some softening of the market but overall Chester County has not seen any Real Estate bubble popping!

$400,000-$600,000

This price range has been a little tougher for the Sellers this season.   For all of my Sellers in this price range I always tell them "If you don't have to move you shouldn't be moving."   We didn't see much trickle up in the $200K-$400K price range so we're not going to see any here.  Let's take a look!

Unfortunately this graph shows us what Realtors in the field know of this price range; it's a tough one.  The graph shows that 2009 sold the least amount of homes in every month in the past three years.  Not a fun group to be in for sure.

But have these folks been lowering their prices to help their cause?  Let's see...

So the graph shows us that for the majority of the year, and in our Real Estate high season of the Spring/Summer, Sellers have lowered their prices a bit from the previous years.  I'm sure if we would have seen a larger gap in price differences we would have seen more sales in this category.   It's a tough pill to swallow but you really need to shine in this price range and higher in our area and if you're not shining your price needs to come down if you want to sell.

Next we'll take a look at $600K-$800K and see how they fared for the first three quarters of 2009.

Krista Fuchs, Realtor.  Giving You The Attention You Deserve.

I can always be reached directly at (484) 459-8025

Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

(484) 875-2600

We have already seen the stats in the $0-$200,000 price range from my previous post so now lets take a look at the next level and see if we're seeing any trickle up effect.

$200,000-$400,000

This pricing group represents a smaller percentage of first time home buyers and mostly move up or downsizing buyers.

As you can see from this chart, 2009 had the slowest start but by June was catching up with the numbers from 2008.  Could this be the result of the $0-$200,000 group moving up?  Most likely.  But it could also be from homes in this price range coming down, so lets see.

This graph does show us that average sold prices are down from 2008.  They are very close though and if you really look, in the past 3 years they are only about $10,000 apart at most.  Chester County have been very lucky in this softening of the market.  We haven't seen significant drops, at least in this price range.

We'll look at the $400K-$600K price range next.  This has been a tough range for a lot of sellers for sure!

Krista Fuchs, Realtor.  Giving You The Attention You Deserve.

I can always be reached directly at (484) 459-8025.

Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

(484) 875-2600

I recently posted a request on facebook for blog ideas and one smarty pants wanted to know when the market was going to come back up. Well, if I knew that I'd be sipping a pina colada on a beach located on Krista Island!

But it did get me wondering how we are comparing this year to other years. I know how we're doing this year but the specifics of other years are fuzzy so I researched the numbers to clear things up.

I split my research into pricing categories of $0-$200,000, $200,000-$400,000, $400,000-$600,000, $600,000-$800,000 and $800,000-$1,000,000. I did this because when I see trends in the field I see them in price ranges mostly.

All of the numbers represent residential real estate in all of Chester County.

$0-$200,000

This price range is the "First Time Home Buyer" range and is usually strong. This year, I think, it has shown more strength due to the Tax Credit involved.

As you can see from the chart 2006 and 2007 started off the same but 2007 ended lower. 2008 and 2009 started lower than 2006 and 2007 but 2009 surged up to 2006 levels with the data ending in September. This surge was most likely due to the tax credit the government offered. But was it also due to homeowners lowering their prices? Let's see!

This graph shows that home prices have been pretty constant for the past few years. It also shows that home prices are on an upward trend this year. In September of all the other years it shows the trend is downward but this year it upward!

So I think it's pretty clear that the first time home buyer tax credit worked well in Chester County because home sales are up along with average sold prices in the $0-$200,000 group.

The goal of the tax credit was to get more people into the housing market with the hopes of the effects trickling upward in the market. So stay tuned to see if that worked in Chester County PA!

Krista Fuchs, Realtor Giving You The Attention You Deserve

I can always be reached directly at 484.459.8025

Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

484.875.2600

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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