Preliminary look at the Local 2008 Market

Next Wednesday at a meeting of our MLS, local Realtors will receive the “State of the Market” report for 2008. This report is done annually by Closser Associates, Inc. (I’ts one of my favorite day’s of the Year! To know me is to know that I love the numbers.) Let me tell you what we know so far, and what we seem to have experienced this past year. Disclaimer: This is my own interpretation. I will report over again after next Wednesday, with the professional findings of Closser and Associates – so tune back in, and see if I got it right.

You need to know that it seemed Marquette was going to come out of the national real estate mess rather unscathed. We have experienced steady increases in values for nearly the past 10 years.
1999 (6.3%) 2000 (9.7%) 2001 (-.8%) 2002 (11%) 2003 (10.3%)

2004 (14.8%) 2005 ( 3.8%) 2006 (8.9%) 2007 (2.%)

2008 started out strong. It only seemed to really start to slip in the Third Quarter. Personally, I had my best year ever; helped over 37 families buy or sell homes; and did over 7 million in sales volume. However the overall MLS did not fair so well.

For the TOTAL North Central MLS which covers a wide base pretty much from Powell to Gwinn, to Munising to Michigamme, (and these numbers include ALL real estate from single family residential, to multi-family to commercial) the stats look like this: Comparing 2008 to 2007.

Units Sold: - 25% Volume ($) Sold: - 33% Average Price: -13%

However, - a very important point - the numbers look much differently if you examine only the area that the Closser Report covers annually. This is the only number that we have historically documented, so to me it's these numbers that tell me how we are really doing. The Closser study only looks at the general Marquette Area, and only residential sales. It includes the areas of Marquette City, Marquette Twsp., Chocolay and Sands Twsps. (Marquette Area Schools).

I took a look at these numbers last week, comparing 2008 to 2007 and found the following:

Units Sold: -13% Volume ($) Sold: -17% Median List Price: +3%
Median Sold Price: +2% Median Days on Market: +15%

So, there are many more homes on the market, taking longer to sell, and fewer homes sold, but at pretty level sales prices. To me it seemed that Buyers just slipped out of the marketplace.

I also looked at this same market and separated sales below $200K, and above $200K. Over 200K took the majority of the hit, with days on market increasing by 40%, and median sold prices dropping about 13%.

I’d like to do a bit more research, looking at even more distinct geographical areas, and will report back in my next blog. We did this throughout the year in our office, with each of us taking a different area and reporting back to the group on that area. We worked hard to try to figure out, just what was happening and where, in order to get some sort of handle on the changing market.

I like to keep a good sense of the market, so that I can help my sellers to price right, and my buyers to buy right. It’s probably a very good idea that our market slowed and leveled some. Our values were increasing at a difficult to sustain rate. A 4% market would be much more comfortable growth than 14% per year.

I can tell you that it seems that we are all very busy around our office for January. When we are busy – like in July – the agents remind me of a bunch of little water bugs, zipping around and around, in and out of the office, hustling, copying, faxing, meeting, etc. It looks pretty much like that around the office right now. Hopefully, that’s a really good sign of things to come.

In summary, markets change. And remember, markets ARE local. Don’t get all bogged down with what’s going on in Phoenix or Miami – its not going to relate to Marquette. I think we are in for a successful 2009!

Like I’ve said before, “Go out and buy a home…you have to live somewhere! ~ Liz