SUMMIT COUNTY REAL ESTATE UPDATE - JANUARY 2010

Contract activity for pending home sales fell after a surge of activity in preceding months to beat the original deadline for the first-time home buyer tax credit but remains comfortably above a year ago, according to the press release on January 5, 2010 by National Association of Realtors®. The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in November was 15.5 percent higher than November 2008.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said that "a surge of real estate activity is expected in the spring as more home buyers take advantage of affordable housing conditions before the tax credit expires".
Buyers who have a contract in place to purchase a primary residence by April 30, 2010, have until June 30, 2010, to finalize the transaction to qualify for the tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500 for repeat buyers.
Accross the county in November the PHSI in the Northeast dropped 25.7% (but is 14.7% above a year ago) and fell 25.7% in the Midwest (but is 9.2% higher than November 2008). Pending home sales in the South fell 15.0% (but are 14.7% higher than a year ago) and declined 2.7% in the West (but 21.4% above November 2008).
Yun projects an additional 900,000 first-time buyers will qualify for the extended tax credit in addition to about 2 million who have already purchased; 1.5 million repeat buyers also are expected to benefit from the credit. Yun added that mortgage interest rates cannot remain at rock-bottom levels for a sustained period and will likely inch higher in 2010. Home prices are expected to stabilize or even modestly rise as a result in 2010.
Here in Colorado, the Denver area real estate market has been showing signs of improvement with prices above the level from 12 months ago and growing, while the Colorado Springs area showed prices being still down from a year ago, but improving. In the Boulder area real estate prices were down compared to a year earlier and continue to weaken (data from the NAR website, based on 3rd qtr. 2009).
While it seems that activity has picked up in Summit County, statistical data shows that the downtrend continues in our local real estate market. Recent article in Summit Daily News (front page January 14, 2010) has
stated that foreclosure numbers are on the rise in Summit County.
Number of sides closed in 2009 has declined 27.7% in 2009 compared to...READ MORE IN MY QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER