Let’s consider several of unrelated statistics today.
First, have you spent any time wondering how REALTORS® such as myself have been faring in this economic downtown? Probably not, but here is one way to quantify what is happening.
The Wisconsin REALTORS® Association forecast before the end of 2008 that the local associations should anticipate about a 20% drop in membership going into 2009. (State license and association membership renewals were due by December 14th.) The figures released by our local association, the Greater Northwoods Association of REALTORS® , show 458 renewing members, vs. 522 a year ago. That is an overall drop in membership of about 12%. More people are leaving the business than are coming to it, but no worries, there are still plenty of real estate professionals to do the job. But it does mean that each remaining REALTOR can expect can expect an increase in monthly and yearly costs as there will be fewer people to share the burden of the dues and expenses of the various associations. Getting a little bit of a double whammy there.
Secondly, let’s look at all single family detached sales in our MLS that closed since last December 1st up until today (46 days) and compare them to the same period one year ago.
December 1, 2008 to January 15, 2009
95 units, total sale price of $23,333,533
89.7% list to sale ratio
Average sale price of $245,616
Median sale price of $166,400
December 1, 2007 to January 15, 2008
104 units, total sale price of $18,889,088
92.7% list to sale ratio
Average sale price of $181,625
Median sale price of $145,000
For the most part, these are properties for which offers were initially tendered in the fall to early winter -- about the time the national financial system started going all to hell in 2008. We did not have that issue in 2007, so this past period compares quite favorably, all things considered. Note that the list to sale ratio (maybe it should be sale to list?) did slip a significant amount since last year.