Curious what’s happening in your Real Estate market? Here is my recap of the First Quarter:
One of the components of the housing market is vacant land sales and construction of new homes. According to the Kitsap County Homebuilders Association there have been 60 new building permits issues for single family homes this year. In comparison last year there were a total of 301 for all of 2009. In looking back, building permits peaked in 1992 at approximately 1800.
Traffic at the recent Kitsap Home and Garden Expo was up along with consumer confidence, according to the participating vendors. This is a great sign going forward. We surveyed various local lenders regarding land/construction loan activity and were pleasantly surprised at how many loans have closed.
Resale homes in the First Quarter have seen a significant increase over last year. Pending sales for March that include King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap are up to 6821 in 2010 verses 4262 in 2009. More specifically in Kitsap County for March there were 394 pending sales out of 1836 active listings, with an average price of $284,798. In North Kitsap there are 489 active listings and 113 went pending as of March 31st with an average price of $270,850. A good share of this is attributed to the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit. We can only hope this trend continues!
Members of the military and certain other federal employees serving outside the U.S. have an extra year to buy a principal residence in the U.S. and qualify for the credit. Thus, an eligible taxpayer must buy, or enter into a binding contract to buy, a principal residence on or before April 30, 2011. If a binding contract is entered into by that date, the taxpayer has until June 30, 2011, to close on the purchase.
Members of the uniformed services, members of the Foreign Service and employees of the intelligence community are eligible for this special rule. It applies to any individual (and, if married, the individual’s spouse) who serves on qualified official extended duty service outside of the United States for at least 90 days during the period beginning after Dec. 31, 2008, and ending before May 1, 2010.
On the Investor Front, more than three times as many potential homebuyers were interested in buying a home as an investment in March compared to the same month last year, according to a survey by Realtor.com operator Move Inc. This goes to show that prices are now at a level attractive to investors. In March, 17.2 percent of consumers planned to purchase a home as an investment in the near future. One year ago, only 5.6 percent did. This again demonstrates the increase in consumer confidence.
With prices continuing to be soft and interest rates still very attractive this is an opportune time to buy!
