Suburban Philadelphia Real Estate News

So now that the tax incentives have expired and the bulk of the settlements did make their original June settlement date goals, where are we today?

Overall it looks like the tax incentives shifted the timing of many purchases but did not create a large boost in traffic.

Looking at the statistics for 2010 year-to-date and comparing it to the same time frame last year, the numbers show several interesting trends.  (The numbers are based on July 3 statistics to allow for delayed sales reporting.)  In 2010, there were 620 pending home sales vs 852 pending in 2009 for a 27% drop.  At the same time, properties that had closed rose from 2135 in 2009 to 2600 in 2010 for a 21% jump in closed properties.  Combining both the pending and settled properties through July 3 for both years, we saw a 7.8% total jump in sales activity for the year through July 3.

We also saw a jump in homes currently available on the market.  In 2009 at this time, there were 3275 homes listed as on the market in the TrendMLS System, while in 2010 there were 3618 for a 10% rise in overall inventory. This also marked an increase of 31% from the inventory low seen in January.

Bottom Line for a year-to-year comparison based on July 3rd numbers:

- Total Active Inventory: +10.5%
- Total Pending Inventory: -27.6%
- Total Sold Inventory: +21.8%
- Total Sales Activity (Pending + Sold): +7.8%

At best, the incentives increased overall activity by 7.8% over last year while largely simply shifting settlements to occur prior to the June 30 tax incentive expiration date.  At the same time, there has been a significant increase in overall inventory which could continue an overall weak pricing environment.  Looks like a great time to be a Buyer while Sellers will need to remain very close to the market to be sure to position their properties correctly.

David Henke
Long & Foster Real Estate Inc - Newtown Square,PA/Bear, DE
Office: 610-359-3853/Cell: 610-618-0808 www.DelawareCountyPennsylvaniaHomes.com

(All statistics per the TrendMLS System and believed accurate but not guaranteed)

Still wondering if now is the time to buy?  Confused on the available tax credits?  Questioning future interest rates?

Today:

- The $8000 Tax Credit For First-Time Homebuyers has been extended.
- A New $6500 Tax Credit is available for move-up and repeat buyers.
- Housing affordability is at an all time high.
- Prices have moderated.
- Mortgage rates are at historic lows.

The President of Long & Foster, Jeff Detwiler, and Barry Redler CMO have put together a short video explaining some key points:

If you are considering a move, now remains a great time to take advantage of this market and the available tax credits.  The combination of affordabilty, low interest rates, an expected increase in home inventory, and the available tax credits make this a unique opportunity to purchase on favorable terms.

As always, if you ever have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to let me know anytime

David Henke
Long & Foster Real Estate Inc - Newtown Square,PA/Bear, DE
Office: 610-353-1199/Direct: 610-359-3853/Cell: 610-618-0808
www.DelawareCountyPennsylvaniaHomes.com

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Take this holiday to spend some time with your friends and family.

Enjoy all the season has to offer.

And Have a Very Prosperous and Happy New Year!

After five years of review and planning, Newtown Township has approved the revised plans for the development of the Ellis Preserve at Newtown Square.

After years of work, meetings, and evolving plans, the Ellis Preserve Town Center is now closer than ever to fruition.  The township will still submit some additional conditions to BPG that must be addressed, and another builder is contesting the approval,  but the project looks like it should be proceeding.

The Ellis Preserve at Newtown Square will include a mixture of office, retail and residential uses.  The Ellis Preserve Town Center should be a great addition to the township and provide a more traditional town center to the area.  In addition to the commercial center concentrated by the intersection of Routes 252 and West Chester Pike, there will also be additional office space along West Chester Pike and various residential options concentrated to the north as you head toward Goshen Road.

For more complete information, be sure to check out the complete Daily Times Article on the meeting itself and the embedded links to take you directly to the developers site.

As always, should you need any additional information, feel free to contact me anytime.

Burlap and Bean in Newtown Square is everything you wanted in a superior local coffee house - and more.

Opened in November 2006, Burlap and Bean has quickly established itself as a great hub of activity in the local Newtown Square PA area.  The owners have committed themselves to running an enlightened establishment and are committed to the community - with even its own running team.  It is a family owned business dedicated to their motto of "Roasting Coffee ~ Brewing Harmony".  They are open six days of the week (closed on Sunday) and roast all their coffee on site so that it can be the freshest possible.

Burlap and Bean Coffeehouse promotes global awareness through Fair Trade and is 100% Fair Trade Organic.  "The Fair Trade Label guarantees that a product was grown and traded in a socially and environmentally responsible manner."  Now, after tons of additional work, they are Pennsylvania Certified Organic as an officially certified Coffee Roasting Facility using only the finest fair trade organic coffee.  They also meet all the requirements of the USDA's National Organic Program.

The owners go well beyond a coffee shop with their support of the local music scene and the arts.  Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, they transform themselves into an intimate music venue.  Thursday night is Open Mic Night with performances starting at 7:30 and lasting for 15 minutes each.  Burlap and Beans is one of the local venues participating in the Summer 2009 Battle of the Open Mics.  Contestants will battle through August 9th to be one of 2 representatives from each venue to go to the finales at the Steel City Coffee House August 19th.

They continue their commitment to music with a long standing program of live performances every Friday and Saturday night.  Hosting a wide variety of entertainers and styles, the series continues to grow in popularity with many sold out dates in 2009.  Their site lists the upcoming performances and provides tremendous details and backgrounds of the various artists.  All taking place in an environment enhanced with a rotating display of local artists works displayed on the walls of the space and even a book exchange.

Whether you are looking for some great organic coffee, the newest live music, local art, or just a spot to sit back and relax for a bit, you need to check out Burlap and Bean in Newtown Square PA.

Questions on the local area?  Don't hesitate to contact me anytime.

Luxury Home sales in Delaware County PA have continued to maintain their leisurely pace as we head into the summer. 

As we have seen in many areas of the county, the Luxury Home sales rate (those homes listed for $1,000,000+) peaked in 2007 with 132 closed home sales with an average price of $1,737,000.  Average pricing has remained relatively consistent from 2003 through 2008 with pricing ranging from a low of $1,642,000 in 2006 to a high of $1,758,000 in 2004.  The actual highest individual home price peaked in 2005 with one $5,000,000 sale.  Since then we have seen the top price decline to $4,250,000 in 2006, $3,799,000 in 2007, $3,300,000 in 2008, and $2,200,000 so far this year.

Year to date, we have seen 19 completed sales at an average final price of $1,836,000, a slight price increase from the average seen in prior years.  In addition, there are 24 homes pending with an average list price of $1,516,000 so the average sold price would be expected to move down.  At this sales rate, it appears that we can expect another decline from the 93 completed home sales in 2008.  There are an additional 167 homes currently on the market with 5 listed for over $5,000,000 and with the highest two properties listed for over $9,000,000; both are located in Radnor Township.  If we maintain the current sales pace, there is an almost 2 year supply of homes now on the market.

Overall, it appears that new home construction continues to be favored in these price ranges.  Nine of the homes settled year to date are new construction and 11 of the pending properties are also new construction.  Of the additional 167 homes currently on the market, 68 are listed as new construction.  Luxury buyers appear to continue to appreciate the flexibility and convenience of the new construction opportunities.

Bottom Line: Although the luxury home market activity has actually increased a bit from the extremely slow pace of the fourth quarter, economic and financing issues appear to continue to weigh heavily on the market. 

As always, if you have any questions or need any additional information on any of the properties available, please do not hesitate to contact me anytime.

(All statistics are from the TrendMLS System and believed accurate but not guaranteed.)

Located along Goshen Rd, just east of Willistown on the edge of Newtown Township lie the homes of two secluded but convenient communities of Springhouse and Echo Valley.

The exclusive Springhouse community is one of the newest developments in Newtown Square consisting of only 17 homesites.  Built by Chip Vaughan and Mike Mirarchi, these homes define luxury in the area. Designed by architect Ann Capron with floor plans ranging from 5000 to over 8000 square feet and lots from just under an acre and up, they allow for an array of beautiful amenities to satisfy many tastes within this award winning community.

Most of the homes were constructed between 2003 and 2005 with prices when new in the $1,750,000+ range with many variations depending on design, size, and amenities.  Today, two of the properties are on the market with an average list price of just over $2.45 million.  Both properties are larger designs with 5 bedrooms and 5 plus baths in about 8000 sq-ft.

Across Goshen Rd lies the older community of Echo Valley.  During the late fifties and sixties, new development progressed throughout the area as growth extended through communities such as Lawrence Park in Marple township and traveled west through Newtown Square to St Albans and Echo Valley. Situated on the site of Echo Valley Farm founded in 1719, this development was started in 1957 and the homes are mostly situated on large private 1+ acre lots hidden just north of Goshen Rd.  The community contains a large array of styles and designs as homes were built through much of the late fifties, sixties, and into the seventies.

This is one of the more established areas and the prices reflect this.  The tax records show 166 homes in the development, but only a handful become available each year.  With the wide range of sizes and styles, since 2006 prices have ranged from $499,00 to over $1,000,000.  The bulk of the sales have been in the high $500,000 to low $600,000 range.  In 2008, there were 7 sales with prices averaging $608,000.  Today, there is only one property available listed for $1,100,000 and there have been no settled sales in 2009.

If you are looking for privacy and convenience in a great area with a wide range of styles and pricing, it is well worth the time to take a look at these two communities.  There are rarely a wide variety of homes on the market at any given time but with patience you can often find the amenities you may be looking for.

As always, if you have any questions or need any additional information, please feel free to contact me anytime.

(All statistics are from the TrendMLS system and believed accurate but not guaranteed)

In this real estate environment, many people are anxious and confused by what they are hearing from their friends, family, and the media.

Prices are going down...  Rates are going up...  I can't get a loan approved...  The FHA Inspectors will never pass my home...  There's too much inventory to sell now...  There's too little inventory to buy since no one will sell at these prices...

You get the idea.  There is always an excuse not to do something on any given day in any given market.

The reality, thankfully, is quite different:

Prices are down. For buyers you can buy more for any given price range.  For sellers this is a great time to trade up, the leverage is working in your favor.

Rates are down. This is good for everyone.  It makes the market more fluid, allows more people to enter the market, and particularly for investors, can really add to the cash flow on your investments.

Incentives are up. Particularly for first time home buyers who qualify there is now an up to $8,000 incentive waiting on your next tax form.

Motivated Buyers and Sellers are here. As the press drills the bad news day in and day out, sellers can become nervous and certainly motivated to work with potential buyers.  Any buyer in this market is ready to buy now.  They have all the reasons in the world to put off the decision, if they are looking - they are serious in today's market.

You can't call the bottom - none of us can, but, regardless of the short term price moves, over the long term the market has always gone up.  With a purchase at these rates and price levels, you can enjoy your home or investment for years to come while minimizing the stress of  high debt and monthly payments.  You just need to take the time and energy to make it happen!

Call me now.  It's OK to Buy!

Let me know what you're planning for your next move.

Recently I have received several questions from people from outside the area trying to understand exactly where the places are that I have mentioned in my blog. In general, they are all in the vicinity of Delaware County Pennsylvania which is located just west of Philadelphia. I recognize that this is not the most detailed answer, so to help visualize this, I am pleased to present my first Google map:


View Larger Map

This covers many of my location specific posts. This map is easier to look at if you first click on View Larger Map. Then, if you click on each place marker, the highlighted description text that pops up is linked back to the original blog post. For the most part, the red markers are for transportation, blue = Local Finds, green = specific communities, aqua = the foreclosure series, and purple = other.

I hope this helps. I have tried several different types of links so any feedback on what you like/dislike would be great.

And a big thank you to Janie Coffey on how to use Google Maps!

So - How are we doing today in the Suburban Philadelphia - Delaware County PA real estate market after the first two months of 2009? - basically OK

The raw numbers don't look good.  The number of sales in January/ February 2009 declined by 28% compared to the November/ December 2008 rate, dropped by 33% compared to Jan/ Feb 2008, and by 47% compared to the average month in 2008.   This obviously does not look good but looks better when you recognize that there was a 22% drop for the same period as we went from 2007 to 2008. 

In addition, after experiencing an average county wide price decline in Nov/ Dec by 8.5 % compared to the average 2008 price, the price has remained stable at $240,000 through the first two months of 2009.  There were also 1361 new listings in this period, down 26% from 2008, and 661 properties that received accepted offers, down 30% from 2008.  This has resulted in an increase in average days on the market from 73 in 2008 to 96 days in 2009.

Finally, the average list price of new units listed was $311,000 versus average sold price of $240,000.  As noted in earlier posts, this is basically evidence of the larger relative activity in the lower price ranges.  As we saw earlier, the luxury market remains challenged in this environment.

Bottom Line:  The warning signs are still out there as we see more inventory, longer days an the market, and lower sales.  The key statistic, though, may be that the prices countywide may be becoming a bit more stable.  If we can hold the price and increase sales, which may result naturally from both the time of year and the trickle down impacts of the stimulus bill, we could see a more stable and building market as we progress through the year.  The key component remains the return of consumer confidence.  If Washington continues to show zero leadership on important issues, we could continue to see a stalled market and a return of declining prices.

If you need more details on your particular community or want to know about your property, please do not hesitate to contact me anytime.

(All statistics from the TrendMLS System and are believed accurate but not guaranteed.)