With the change in Tri City Association of Realtors accounting of active listings (for sale) and under contract, it is difficult to compare these statistics of the previous year.  Trends that can be followed are the sales, average and median prices. The sales for last month, October 2009, exceeded sales during the same month for the last five years.  Only June 2007 exceeded last month’s sales most recently.

What caused this explosion of sales?  I believe two factors contributed to this situation. One is the stimulus money introduced to the Tri-Cities supporting many of our federally funded programs. Secondly, there has been a rush for “first time home buyers” to close on their transactions prior to December 2009.  When we review the average and median prices, we experienced a drop in both price indexes. The average price for October 2009 indicated a price drop of 6.1% over the previous month.   I believe this data indicates that the lower end of our market where first time home buyers are most likely to purchase is most active.

When I review our absorptions rates, we do not register a Buyers’ market until we have homes priced above $325,000.  Homes priced above $475,000 indicate over a two year supply.  Home buyers should be able to negotiate favorable terms above this price.