The June Swoon

We had a pretty good April and May this year in the Milford area, at least good for the current Michigan market; but, we've since experienced a "June swoon". I attribute a part of this to school getting out and people being busy with graduation parties and maybe taking early vacations. As we head into July I kind of expect this swoon to continue until late August. At that time we'll see another pickup as people try to get settled into new homes for the next school year.

A recently released study by the local real estate multi-list service gave proof to what most of us in the business have been seeing and have been telling our sellers - home values are down in most areas, some quite dramatically. The report, which I will post on my main Web site - www.themilfordteam .com - is sorted by Zip code and shows that the average prices in most zip codes are down by anywhere from 5 - 20%. Another interesting stat from this report is the % of asking price that home sellers are getting. In most Zip codes that percentage has slipped to 95% or below.

Anecdotal input from the market also indicates that 75-80% of offers that we're seeing right now have Seller's concessions in the terms of the offer - often 3% of the offer price. These concessions are used to cover the buyer's closing costs and are usually limited to 3% maximum. In many cases, when you see sold prices that are above the asking price, it is because the 3% is tacked onto the offer price and then taken back off again as a Seller's concession. What interesting web's we weave in real estate.