Lehigh Valley Real Estate Blog, Home Buying & Selling Information

Bethlehem Real Estate and Home Sales in July

What is going on with Home Sales in Bethlehem? How many homes are currently on the market and how many have gone under agreement since the beginning of July?

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at home sales in North and West Bethlehem.

Typically, if a home buyer is looking in North Bethlehem they are also looking in West Bethlehem.

So, with this in mind let's see what is happening in the price range of $150,000 to $200,000. In this price range, you get a mixture of single detached homes as well as twins. It leaves the Bethlehem Home Buyer in the position of having to decide if having a "detached" home over-rides some of the amenities in a twin.

In addition, it leaves the Bethlehem Home Seller with a major decision on how to price their home in this market of heavy competition.

North Bethlehem
	Detached Homes
		Available	26		Pending	6
	Semi-Detached Homes
		Available	13		Pending	1
West Bethlehem
	Detached Homes
		Available	16		Pending	2
	Semi-Detached Homes
		Available	9		Pending	2
Total		Available: 64		Pending: 11

So, if you have a home to sell in Bethlehem that falls in the price range of $150,000 to $200,000 your home will be one among 64 other possibilities. With only 11 homes going under contract since July 1st, your home must be positioned correctly in this real estate market to sell.

Lehigh Valley Short Sales in Real Estate

A Short Sale is a method of selling a home in which the mortgage company accepts less for the property than what is actually owed on it. When a home owner runs into financial problems it is better to attempt to sell the house in a Short Sale rather than do a Deed in Lieu Of or let it go into Foreclosure.

A Lehigh Valley home owner does not have to be behind on mortgage payments in order to qualify for a Short Sale but they must prove a financial hardship.

Every financial institution has a Loss Mitigation Department. The First Step to a Short Sale is to contact the Loss Mitigation Department at your Lending Institution and request an application for a Short Sale.

When a HomeBuyer makes an offer on a house involved in a Short Sale, the Mortgage Company or Bank is involved with all of the negotiations. This process can get lengthy in time and it is important that all of the parties actively communicate.

Tell me more about Lehigh Valley Short Sales.

Home Sales and Real Estate in Lehigh Valley

So, what is going on with the Lehigh Valley Real Estate Market? We all hear the doom and gloom on the news but I decided to take some time to look in depth at a few different areas in Lehigh Valley to see what is happening with home sales in those areas. These stats are for single detached homes only.

I decided to look at Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Macungie. I wanted to see how many homes are currently on the market, how many homes sold in the month of June in those respective markets plus how close to list price did the seller get for the home. For Nazareth, I included Upper and Lower Nazareth and for Macungie I included Upper and Lower Macungie. Bethlehem includes all of Bethlehem but does not include Bethlehem Township. Let's take a look at the stats:

City	For Sale	Sold in June	% of List Price
Bethlehem	167	30	93.50
Macungie	325	48	93.23
Nazareth	125	14	96.49

The % of list price in Macungie was higher for homes that were not on the market as long. The 93.23 was for homes that had been listed for 91-120 days. It was above 96% for homes that sold below that time frame. For Bethlehem, the 93.50 was for homes on the market greater than 120 days. For homes on the market less than this time it was 95.34 or higher.

If we look at the absorption rate for each of these areas we have 6 months for Bethlehem, 7 months for Macungie, and 9 months for Nazareth. The absorption rate is a measure of how long it will take to sell every house on the market based on how many are sold each month. Any number above 5 or 6 months indicates it is a buyer's market.

What these statistics definitely indicate is that we are in a buyers market as the news has been telling us. What these stats also show is that typically most homes in Lehigh Valley sell for not less than 5% of the asking price. The national media is stating that 10% below the list price is common. In the Lehigh Valley, it is less than 5% of the asking price and if I were to delve deeper into the stats most homes sell for around 97% of the listed price.

If you are interested in any particular area in the Lehigh Valley, just let me know and I will publish the statistics for that area on this blog.