Fresh update of market stats

I just completed the weekly updating of the market data that I track for 9 markets in my area - Milford (Village and Township combined), Highland Township, White Lake Township, Commerce Township (including Walled Lake and Wolverine Lake), Lyon Township and South Lyon, and West Bloomfield Township in Oakland County; plus, Green Oak Township, Brighton and Brighton Township and Hartland Township in Livingston County.

You can see all of the latest data, plus historical data for many of those markets at my Web site - www.movetomilford.com . I collect and show the last listed price for the house and the sold price, from which I calculate the percentage of sold vs. list to see how close listed homes are to the actual market price. I also look up the SEV (State Equalized Value) and calculate the sold price vs SEV ratio. In theory, since the SEV is supposed to represent 1/2 of the assessors estimate of the homes market value, I should always get 2.0 as the ratio. In practice we have been consistently running between 1.5 to 1.8 times SEV as the actual sold market price.

I also capture and report the Square Footage of the homes and the calculated price per Sq Ft as listed and as sold. Most homes in areas that I track are selling in the mid $80/sq ft range, some much lower. That is a reflection of the impact of distressed homes on market pricing.

The way I display the data is to focus on this month's sales and then also have PDF files available that show the year-to-date statistics for each market. In the Current months data I also calculate the percentage of sales that are distressed - either foreclosed or short sales - and show that at the bottom of the data for each market.

If you are thinking of selling this is a valuable place to get a feel for the market and where you need to price your home in order to be competitive. You can price it any way you wish, of course; but, remember that this data is showing you what is actually selling, not what is listed and just sitting on the market.

If you are a buyer, this data can give you a good feel for what to bid in any market, since you will have a good feel for what sellers are ending up taking for homes. You can use the price per square foot data to at least find the ballpark that you might want to start your bidding in. Of course, most non-distressed homes will sell higher tan the averages that are shown, since they include lots of distressed sales (distressed sales are making up 50% or more of all sales in most markets).