Ability Realty

The December Statistics from MLS show a somewhat typical Month for December. Many sellers do not want to be bothered having their home on the market over the Holidays and the buyers are busy with the Holidays also.

The number of new listings fell to 1590 in December as compared to 2224 new listings in November. The re-lists of properties in December was 116 as compared to 184 in November. Days on market jumped probably again because of the Holidays.

I expect January will see numbers just under the December numbers, but I think the Listings Under Contract will increase to about the November numbers of around 900.  After that, I truly expect to see the numbers of Solds and Listings Under Contract to go up every month at a slow rate.

We have not seen the last of the foreclosures and short sales. There are some great bargains out there. A large portion of a homes search will contain many of these.

I still say you should start the loan process and start looking before prices stabilise and start back up. Loans just below 6% are showing up. The Federal Reserve is poised to cut the the Discount Rate the end of this month. Everything I see says it will be 1/2%. Now this does not mean mortgage rates will go down that much, but it will have a slight affect.

I still think now is the time to get your ducks in a row and be ready to look to see if the home you want is out there.

Have a great 2008, spend wisely, and slow down to save gas.