January 2010 Real Estate Sales Summary for South Walton

[Em]

January 2010 Sales Up Greatly Compared to January 2009

by murray balkcom
dreambigproperties.com

Wow! It seems like the first month of 2010 blew past rapidly, but the warm weather of Spring cannot get here soon enough. Before you know it, May will be here and many of you will be able to board a SouthWest Airlines jet and fly directly to the beach. I?m not sure whether or not that will spark sales, but it should add a few extra trips to the beach each year for many South Walton beach lovers.

Winter keeps many people away from the beach and typically, that means slower sales for real estate in South Walton. So when I inform you that sales slipped from those unusually high levels in the month of December, you shouldn?t be too surprised. However, we are seeing a little twist ? Though sales (both quantity and dollar volume) decreased compared to December, pending sales for Homes, Condos, & Town Homes (combined) increased 24% compared to December.



Also, to see longer term trend comparisons, these three charts compare the...
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[scooterbug44]

Are short sale offers considered pending? If so, the long response time would account for the rise in pendings while the actual number and price of sales declines.

 

[Em]

Good question. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to short sales going into pending or contingent status. The MLS rules for ECAR state that once under contract, the listing cannot remain active. So, listing agents have the ability to move the listing to the contingent or pending status -- their own choice. The contingent status is available for agents who want to market the property to other agents or to agents who want to find potential properties which are under contract but may not close due to big contingencies, such as lender approval. They do so with the idea of potentially submitting a back up offer.

The results I show above are solely the properties which are in the pending status, and does not include properties with the contingent status. If you ask most listing Realtors in our area, I think that most will tell you that with short sales, once under contract, they change the status to contingent. Then, when the lender approves the short sale, they move to pending, even though there will be other contingencies to be met. Keep in mind that every pending contract is contingent on something, even the ones with no noticeable contingencies are contingent on both parties staying alive.