Activity's Up
There has been a noticeable increase in the number of people looking at homes over the past two weeks. We’re seeing more buyers coming out on Sundays to our open houses, more calls into our offices and more web responses to our internet postings. The Bergen County real estate market has been very very busy.
At the same time, the real estate inventory is growing daily as more and more people are putting their homes on the market for sale now that we’re safely past the snow season. Most homehomes owners do not want to sell their home during the winter weather so having the number of homes for sale grow significantly at winter’s end is quite normal.
The reason for home buyer activity is improved market conditions. Prices are down substantially from 2004 (by 20 to 25% in most areas), mortgage rates tumbled over the past 2 weeks and one of the most respected analysts of New Jersey real estate, Jeffrey Otteau, announced last week that New Jersey real estate will depreciate another 9% in 2009 and then stay at that level in 2010 as the real estate market stabilizes. For many home buyers, this combination of factors made buying a home now a great idea.
It will be interesting to see if this pick up in activity continues and for how long. I have a funny feeling that the “smart money” is buying a home now. Only a lucky person picks the market bottom but I must say that we’ve got to be pretty close to it now.
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