Sandy Springs Market Update

Sandy Springs, like most areas around the country has seen a slowdown in home sales compared with the same time last year. I though it would be a good time to compare the numbers from June and July of 2006 to the same time period this year. We use data from the First Multiple Listing Service for our reports which is the largest MLS in Sandy Springs.

• A quick glance of back at this time period during 2006 shows 161 sold. This same time period during 2007 shows a dramatic drop in sales. Down to 89 in fact.
• The days on market for homes shows an average time on market in 2006 of 69 days and that number has grown to 78 days.
• The average price of a home in 2006 was $735,254 while in 2007 the average price is $735, 489.

So what is happening here? Well, from these numbers we can see one they quite clearly; the number of buyers has dropped 44%! Since the days on market has only increased 13% and home prices are flat, there has to be something else that has reduced the number of home sales so dramatically. All aspects of comparison are the same so something has to be affecting buying patterns - or lack of them to affect sales this dramatically.

The reality is that not much has changed for buyers that would impede buying homes at the price point of Sandy Springs real estate. The sub prime mortgage crisis has affected home buyers at a lower price point for the most part and supply does not directly impacted the number of homes sold so my contention is that the news of an impending real estate crash is as likely a cause as any. That's right, overgeneralized, barely relevant information about other places around the country reported on the news is trickling down to consumers everywhere. Without proper information, buyers have decided that they should not buy for fear of prices dropping or have decided to hold off and wait for prices to drop.

It's true. Real estate is cyclical and right now it is slow. Many talking heads say that this will last anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. My suspicion is that next spring, maybe around this coming March we will see the market begin to turn around. Making future predictions about any real estate market should always come with a caveat because we do not have crystal balls.

My suggestion, based on looking at data is to buy when you are ready and not get caught up in the analysis paralysis that can get in the way.

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