About South Orange's Montrose

August is dead around here. Dead. I love it - you can finally get a parking space at the post office! But it's not the ideal time to sell a house.

Along comes a delightful couple beingre-lo'd across country, and they HAVE to sell. I consulted, and then went back to reclaim the basement. They followed the chart, the realtor did NOT put a fire-sale price on the thing, and voila - it sold! At once.

It just goes to show you that a well-priced house, in a good location, in great condition will sell and usually quickly. Who was it said here, people buy houses. They always will. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but someone is always moving!

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It was a good summer for us at Juliet Johnson Staging. Our volume was down, but our numbers were fab - average 21 DOM!! Not bad for a "recession"/ "credit crunch"/ "housing crisis"! Every one of those houses came on the market over $1 million.

Home Staging NJ, Juliet Johnson.

The volume of listings for July 2007 was 164 with an average price of $688,000 & July 2008 was 177 with an average price of 667,546.

New residential listings during the month were 29 with an average of $682,607 for July 2007 and July 2008 was 34 residential listings averaging $730,894.

Now we come to the numbers reflecting the sales activity. July 2007 had 16 properties go under contract averaging $764,344 versus July 2008 with 20 properties aveaging $500,165.

Finally, the month of July 2007 closed out with 24 homes sold averaging $596,417, while July 2008 saw 15 homes sold averaging $589,533.

In summary, the market remains robust for listings. Sales on the other hand are down as are sales prices.