Sunday, December 21, 2008

Ten Best Suburbs to Sell a Home

(from a recent Forbes.com article by Matt Woosley)

As we close up the year 2008, the US housing market is undoubtedly under stress, but in some parts of the country, like Matthews, North Carolina, selling a home is still a comparatively easy undertaking.

In Berkeley, California, prices are up 9% this year, with homes selling for a median price of $790,986. These California properties are sitting on the market for 73 days on average, which is low for the country right now. And better yet for our friends in Berkley, only 37% of sellers have been forced to reduce their prices to get their homes sold—one of the lowest rates in the country.
Berkeley is in good company: Venice, California; Bedford, Texas; Kennesaw, Georgia; and Montclair, New Jersey, are all also on the list of suburbs with the best conditions for sellers. The folks at Forbes.com looked at the suburbs in the country's 75 largest (census-defined) metro areas based on the last 90 days of sales activity, (research provided by Altos Research, a Mountain View, California). The study was narrowed to those cities with an inventory of at least 75 homes on the market, and suburbs where it currently takes more than 125 days to sell the average home were also eliminated. Cities like Sacramento, California, and Los Angeles are among the easiest to sell a home, (based on sales data from Radar Logic, a New York real estate research firm), but homes are mainly selling at massive discounts—so they were eliminated from the final list as the “best places to sell a home.” Also eliminated were any other suburb where year-over-year price declines were steeper than 10% and where more than 50% of sellers had to reduce their asking price to sell their home.

All that said, areas like Encinitas, Calif., and Matthews, N.C., where among the locations where homes are staying on the market 100 and 127 days respectively, made the list even though the wait times indicate a buyers' market.

Waltham, Mass., has the second-quickest turnaround of any suburb on the list, with only 79 days average on-market. Waltham, a middle-class suburb west of Boston, has seen 1% price appreciation over the last year, and only 53% of sellers have to reduce their price in order to make a sale. While this does not indicate the strongest of markets, it does put Waltham in a better position than many cities in the US.

Here is the Forbes.com list of the 10 best places to sell your home:
1. Berkeley, CA
2. Bedford, TX
3. Venice, CA
4. Kennesaw, GA
5. Sugarland, TX
6. Midvale, Utah
7. Matthews, NC
8. Encinitas, CA.
9. Waltham Mass.
10. Montclair, NJ

So what does all this mean to you? If you are buying a home in Charlotte, than you can find that there are some great deals out there still—and you can feel comforted by the fact that our property values are holding still or growing despite the economy. You are making a good investment with a property in Charlotte. And if you are a seller, than you are lucky to be in or around Matthews, where you are likely to get close to your asking price…and in an acceptable amount of time!

Are you looking to sell or buy a home in Charlotte, NC? Call Rich Ferretti at 704-564-0807.
Want more information about the Charlotte area real estate market? Check out www.richferretti.com

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Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate Professional. Visit our site www.RichFerretti.com