When it comes to real estate, SPRING has SPRUNG!

When we meet with sellers in the cold months of winter it is common to hear "We want to sell but we want to wait until the Spring market." The thought process is understandable. There are typically more buyers in the Spring market, but the flip side of the coin is that there are also more sellers. Real Estate also stubbornly refuses to follow a traditional calendar. 

The most important thing to know for a seller is when should I sell my house. And the answer can be found in the numbers. The best time to sell is always when there is low inventory compared to the number of active buyers in the market. And the numbers tell us that Spring is here now and in a very strong way!

If we start with the average price of a home sold in January of 2018 in Oxford County the number is $369,607.26. Nothing wrong with that number at all, but when we look back to January of 2017, we see that same number was $326,821.01. That's an increase of over $40,000 in just 12 months.

The next question is why? And the numbers give us the answer once again! There were only 68 home sales in Oxford County in January 2018 compared to 109 in January 2017. This was because of constrained inventory with a great stream of active buyers. The simple laws of supply & demand come into play. When many buyers want to purchase an item that is in short supply, prices rise. There were 94 new listings in Oxford County this past January. When you look at the number of homes sold in the same period, the picture is completely clear!

So the Spring market has arrived very early this year! If you are thinking of selling your home this year, the timing could not be better than right now. None of us has a crystal ball, but Spring (the calendar one!) normally sees an influx of listings. We have recently seen the return of buyers from the east in force and they are ready to buy homes in our area. We are also starting to see the return of offer days and multiple offers on properties again that we haven't been seeing much of for several months. 

If you would like to know more on how the current state of the market can be leveraged into getting you top dollar for your home, please contact any member of The Sherman Group. We look forward to answering all of your questions and helping in any way we can!

Happy Spring!

(no matter what the groundhog says...)