Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Doug's October Letter To Sellers

Happy October greetings from a cloudy, wet Martha’s Vineyard. I am not complaining, however, as we needed the rain.

First I need to make a correction from my September letter. Sales in August were incorrectly reported. There were 23 sales, not 12 as I reported so that is good news -- sales in August were up not down. September sales reported so far, total 15 with an average price of $1.25M and a median price of $675,000. The average days on market are down from 288 in August to 255 in September.

Properties showing under contract in LINK today number at 55, which is promising for a productive 4th quarter. The 4th quarter in 2009 was the strongest quarter last year…let’s hope for the same this year. Of these 55, 23 are over $1M with one topping the $10M mark, so the upper end of the market appears to be strong. One recent sale in Chilmark does, however, show that this current downturn in the market affects all prices ranges. A home along the south shore that sold in 2007 for $8.75M just sold for $5.4M last month.

Interest rates again are offered at historic low rates and continue to help buyers “get off the fence”. This trend is expected to continue through the remainder of the year which is contradictory to predictions from last spring. Just like TV weathermen, economic forecasters can be wrong!

No comments: