The Evanston Real Estate Market: Does it Favor Buyers or Sellers?

What’s going on in the Evanston Real Estate Market? Are the trends being reported in the national media happening here too? Does the Evanston housing market now favor buyers or sellers? Let’s take a closer look:

In the Buyer’s Favor:

• The cost of borrowing money (a.k.a. interest rates) remains low, around 3.5% for a conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgage. This means that buyers now can afford to buy higher-priced houses than ever. Ask your grandparents if they can remember interest rates as low as the rates we are being quoted these days. Low interest rates make this a great time to be a home-buyer.
• Prices are still generally well-below the peak seen in 2007. A number of properties have recently sold at prices not seen since the early 2000′s. You don’t have to worry about getting caught up in a “housing bubble” these days like
• Foreclosures and Short Sales are still happening, albeit at a slow pace. When buyers get a house through a short sale or that has been foreclosed upon, they pay less than market value on average.
• It takes both a seller and a buyer to complete the sale of a home. Sellers still need buyers.

In the Seller’s Favor:

• The number of homes available for sale in March was drastically lower than the last two years. As the number of buyers has rebounded this year, these lower numbers have turned the Evanston market in the favor of sellers. (see chart)
• The rate of sales continues to be strong, so the time it takes to sell a home is very low on average. The attached chart shows how this is to the advantage of Evanston home-sellers in all price ranges, compared to the past two years. (see chart)

• Median sale prices in every price range show substantial gains in every price range over the past 24 months. This should make most Evanston seller’s happy, except those who either 1) bought at the peak of the “bubble”, or 2) insist on listing their house for sale at 2007-peak prices. (see chart)

• Sellers in March 2013 were able to negotiate for a higher percentage of their original listing price than we’ve seen in many years. This trend also favors Evanston home-sellers. (see chart)

In the Favor of Both Buyer and Seller:

• The number of closed sales increased in March, particularly in the price ranges that contain the majority of Evanston’s housing stock. (see chart) This is a fundamentally good thing on many levels. On the Evanston-wide market level, this means that confidence has returned to the real estate market. Neighborhood-to-Neighborhood, this means that there is likely more recent transaction data to support the value of property in your neighborhood or even on your block. This also means that two real parties, a buyer and a seller, both came to an agreement that it was in the best interest of both of them to enter into a contractual agreement to buy and sell a particular parcel of property. Both now benefit from a higher standard of living than they were experiencing before their transaction took place. Understanding Real Estate like this is at the heart of what I mean by “Housing for Good.”

There’s a lot more data out there than can help you as you make your housing-related decisions. You can get a lot of it yourself on your smartphone. But that data can also confuse and deceive you if you don’t analyze it correctly. I have the experience and expertise to help you analyze all that voluminous data correctly so that you can make the wisest decisions possible given your current life situation. Let’s talk! Let’s go do some housing for good.