January Market Report: The Long Road to Price Stabilization
testing
February 14, 2012
February 14, 2012
Last updated July 2, 2019
The numbers for the Pierce County Housing Market for January 2012 are in! Once again, the number of homes listed for sale is down to 4,142. That is a 19% decrease in the number of homes for sale over January of 2011. There were 551 closings in January 2012, this essentialy matches January’s 2011 number when there were 554.
The median price of sold homes was $174,950 for the month of January 2012, down 12.5% from January 2011. Pierce County had 1,061 properties under contract in January 2012, up 8% from January 2011.
“We’ve been saying for the past couple months that we believe the market has entered into a stabilization phase, that is stabilization with downward bias.” Says Michael Robinson, Owner at Windermere Professional Partners. “During this phase we expect transaction velocity to increase. That was pretty much the story for January when you attribute the severe weather we had causing activity to plummet during the third week.”
Michael is referring to the effects of the heavy snowfall and ice storm that shut down government offices, business, and impeded the process of showing homes in the third week of January.
“This stabilization process needs to play out before we’ll be able to start talking about prices going up,” says Michael. “The good news is it’s happening, the bad news is it has a way to go.”