HGTV has a housing site called FrontDoor.  They published this article on the top 15 updates sellers can do to maximize their resale.
One of my earlier posts discussed that sellers often have to spend thousands of dollars getting their home ready to sell in today’s market.
The highly watched S&P/Case-Shiller Index was released this morning showing a 20 city composite decline of 10.7% across the nation and a 10% decline for Twin Cities home prices. The 20 city index is displayed graphically below.
Here’s the AP story on the release as well as MarketWatch’s report.
I’ve been paying close attending to the pending sales activity from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. They publish this excellent report just about every week of the year.
You can see by the chart below that pending sales activity has been ticking upward since the second week of Janaury. Remember, pendings sales are homes that have contracts on the home but they have not yet closed. Contingent sales do not count towards pended contracts.
What’s interesting to look at is to see when the pending sales activity peaks. It seems to peak in mid April and perhaps goes as long as the first or second week of May and then we start the long slide downward towards the bottom in early January.
Closed sales usually peak in May or June because of the lagging effect between the time a home pends and when it closes.
In other words, we are presently in peak selling season right now through the next 4-6 weeks. It doesn’t mean we won’t be able to sell homes after May 15th, but if history is our guide, the overall activity will start to slow.
Click to enlarge:
This chart above may be a little difficult to read. If you’d like a better view of it, you can launch the pdf and view page 3 for the pending sales activity.
Â
