Test your local real estate market knowledge

At mid-year we are still in a Sellers’ Market in most markets and prices have dramatically increased in some markets (but not all). Distressed sales are down and the appraisers have been able to keep up with the price rises fairly well; so, sales at those higher prices are closing. I track real estate sales in 9 local markets on a weekly basis and publish the stats on those sales every week. Below is a little test to see how knowledgeable you are about those local markets.

The average price per square foot for homes has been on the rise and is once again above $100/Sq Ft in many markets.  See if you can match the markets below to their respective average sold-price-per-square-foot home prices in the markets that I track.

A. Milford                     1. $98

B. Highland                   2. $111

C. Commerce                3. $110

D. White Lake              4. $114

E. West Bloomfield      5. $106

F. South Lyon               6. $92

G. Brighton                   7. $105

H. Green Oak                8. $97

I. Hartland                     9. $103

You can find out by going to www.movetomilford.com and looking under the choice "What have homes in this area sold for?" Scroll down until you find the choices for the Y-T-D data for each market. If you don't want take the time to do that click here.

There are many other interesting statistics available there for each market and the sales in each market are documented month by month. One stat that many people haven't undated their thinking about is the SEV and what that means in the current market. There probably never was a time when it was actually accurate to just double the SEV to find the market value of the house. That is really true right now when sales are averaging better than 2.4 times SEV in most markets. See where your market is in terms of SEV vs. sold prices.

You can also find the latest sales at the Move to Milford web site, updated through the last Sunday. One thing to note in particular is that distressed sales in most markets is down close to or at zero percent of total sales. The days of finding lots of foreclosed houses or short sales is past. There will also be a few, but with the improving economy, and rapidly improving home prices; more and more owners now find themselves above water on their homes or at least better able to service their mortgages.

So visit the movetomilford.com web site and get up to date on the latest real estate stats for the area in and around Milford, Michigan.