Western Michigan Real Estate Market Update for Fall 2014 Part 2

Welcome back everyone to part 2 of our real estate market update. Today we are going to talk about just a few more things you should keep an eye out for right now in the real estate market. Some of these market shifts may impact your current or future home and we want to make sure you are aware of that.

The absorption rate in real estate is the number of homes that sell in a given time relative to the number of homes available. The absorption rate right now is about 30%, which means that 30/100 homes on the market right now are the ones that are going to sell. Any absorption rate over 20% is considered a seller’s market and as you can see, that’s where we are at.

As far as how long a home stays on the market, right now we are at a healthy average of 39 days. The average is about 55 days and in Western Michigan it’s even higher. These homes are also selling for about 97% of their asking price, which is above average as well.

While conditions seem to be perfect for sellers and sellers only, that’s not the case. Interest rates for mortgages are at historical lows right now in the 4% range. This is so much lower than these rates have been in the past. If you are thinking about making a move, now is the time to do so because locking these interest rates in now could save you thousands of dollars down the road over the life of your loan.