Lehigh Valley Real Estate Blog, Home Buying & Selling Information

SPRING MAY NOT BE THE BEST TIME TO BUY-NOW IS THE BEST TIME

Blue Bell, PA— A word of advice from Art Herling, Regional Vice President of Long & Foster Real Estate: “For those homebuyers who have yet to ‘jump into the pond and make a splash’, don’t wait until spring-buy now.”

“With rates at around 6%, even less, this is one of the best times to buy that I’ve seen in my 27-plus years in real estate. It continually amazes me that buyers seem to always wait until spring-which is exactly when the rest of the potential homebuyers are buying. In fact, the best time to buy may be December 23^rd at 3 PM. When everyone else is holiday shopping, you could be getting the best buy of all.”

Regionally, the Delaware Valley has seen a 2.2% increase in home prices. For the first 11 months of 2007, Long & Foster’s sales volume in the Delaware Valley is up 11% over the same time frame of a year ago. “Home prices have risen 42% since 2003. For those home sellers out there or potential home sellers who are reading this article, this is what you need to know:

Stop paying attention to all the ‘doom and gloom’ nay sayers out there. If your house is priced properly, staged and positioned properly, and you choose a sales agent with a solid track record and experience, your house will sell in 40 days or less. It really is all in the details-the buyers are out there.

With 18,000 residential sales associates throughout the firm’s seven-state Mid-Atlantic region, Northern Virginia-based Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. operates 21 Delaware and Lehigh Valley offices throughout Pennsylvania,  New Jersey and Delaware. During November the Devon office led the way, with nearly $20 million in sales volume, followed by the Doylestown office with nearly $19 million, Blue Bell with close to $14 million, Spring House with $13.3 million and Media with $10.7 million. The Media office was number one in units sold with 54, and 8^th overall out of 253 sales offices.

“Despite our size, we maintain a boutique atmosphere in our offices, and people are still the most important focus”, said Herling. “With the ability to provide everything under one roof-mortgage, title, insurance, relocation, etc., we make it extremely easy for buyers and sellers to accomplish all their real estate goals in one place.”

Forbes Lists Lehigh Valley as 1 in 10 Markets Where Prices Continue to Grow

On Thursday, Forbes Magazine listed the Lehigh Valley as one of ten hot housing markets where home prices continue to grow.

Although home sales in the valley have dropped 15% this year, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) home prices in Lehigh Valley PA, in the 3rd quarter of this year, have risen 4.4%.

Over the past few years, home sellers and buyers have seen home prices increase 10-20% per year. This year marks the lowest increase in over 7 years.

Due to the national media, potential home buyers believe that Lehigh Valley home sellers will take any offer given on their property. In a past blog, I wrote about some of the offers that buyers are making on houses.

A couple of more recent stories:

Homeowner dropped their $500,000 house by $35,000 and then received an offer for $80,000 less. Offer rejected.

Homeowner had their house, that needed some work, listed for $325,000 in a $350,000 - $400,000 neighborhood. They received an offer for $220,000. Offer rejected.

Many home buyers ask about Foreclosures. Foreclosures account for less than one-half of a percent of the homes sold in Lehigh Valley.