Chester County Statistics for November 2009

By John Lauber On December 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Finishing the month of December, it’s a good time to see what happened in the month of November in the Chester County housing market. We had a HUGE month as sold listings jumped to 549 sold listings, the highest month this year. What contributed to this jump? Most likely the anticipation of the original first time buyer credit end date of November 30. That was averted in mid-November when the date was extended to have an agreement of sale to April 30, 2010 and settlement by June 30, 2010. The anticipation, however, did drive many buyers to jump into the market and that’s reflected in the lower average and median home sale prices.

Holidays and the state of the market

As the holidays approached, new listings took a dip as did the under contract listings (our future sold listings). Though with the uncertainty in the markets and the presidential election, the same time last year was a very slow time. This year has been much better as we’re seeing some signs of stability. Having said that, due to the low number of under contract listings, the absorption rate (or months of inventory) did rise to almost 12 months of inventory. That’s high, but not unusual for this time of year as people think about the holidays and not necessarily buying or selling a house.

If you’d like to get local market information for your area, feel free to contact us by email or our contact page.