Wow, time flies and here it is October. Welcome to the fourth quarter. Time to take a look at the September, 2008 real estate statistics for Chester County.

As you’ve probably read there was a bit of turmoil in the news last month (and it still continues this month) regarding the financial markets. While most of the news was not pleasant, much of it was on a national basis regarding companies and factors that generally do not affect our area directly. It does affect our area indirectly through general consumer confidence.

Having said that, let’s look at last months numbers. Solds are a product of under contract or pending properties from the prior months. Very few properties are put under contract and sold the same month, though it does happen. Under contract properties is our future “solds” to put it a different way. September’s under contract numbers dropped again from 372 in August to 303 in September. This is a 17% drop over the same time last year (366 under contract). The sold numbers also went down, dropping from 513 to 404 units. This drop was not as severe percentage-wise at a 3% drop from last year. Inventory was slightly less than August with 4,804 properties on the market. That number is only 1% higher than September, 2007 (4764). What do these numbers mean for the absorption rate, or months of inventory? Well, it did increase from a 10.5 month supply to a 13 month supply.

The average and median sold prices continued their yo-yo as the average lowered to $354,627 and the median lowered to $295,288. Compared to last year this is down around 8% and 9%, respectively. Days on market for solds and under contract properties are still in a normal range at 73 and 83 days average time on the market. As you can see homes are still selling! Inventories have not increased dramatically and have actually reduced over the last few months. There will probably be a general slowing until after the election and as the market continues to try and sort itself out. Mortgage rates are still historically low and home prices have not decreased dramatically.

I’ll be writing up a third quarter report sometime later this month. If you would like to discuss your options in this market, feel free to contact me or give me a call. I’d be happy to help.

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