Deerfield housing market on upswing

Deerfield housing market

Consistent with November’s national real estate trends, homes for sale in Deerfield aren’t staying on the market as long as they were a year ago. That’s coming from RE/MAX sales associate Rachel Hausman, who said she has seen a steady uptick in Deerfield home sales over the past year.

Hausman said these days the most prominent concern among buyers in Deerfield is shortage of inventory. That’s also consistent with national trends, according to the National Association of Realtors. In a press release, NAR experts said, for the first time in “a number of years,” average time on the market for homes has dropped below 6 months.

“When they (homes) do come on the market, they sell in a couple days, if not that day,” Hausman said of Deerfield homes. “Some are going over their listing price.”

Hausman said home prices are also increasing in Deerfield, primarily because buyers are competing for move-in ready homes.

“A lot of people don’t want to do any work (remodeling) and are willing to spend $20,000 or $30,000 more to have it updated,” Hausman said. Most homes priced in the $300,000 range are currently selling much quicker, improving the overall price range, Hausman said.

This past summer, Hausman said homes in Deerfield that were priced between the mid-$300,000 to $500,000 price range would get at least 3 or 4 offers. She also said there have been more people flipping homes, buying them in the low $200,000 range, renovating and selling them in the high $300,000 range.

“Those were mostly updated homes,” Hausman said. “Most buyers want at least 3 bedrooms with a basement, or 4 bedrooms without a basement. It seems a lot of families know they will need that storage for their 5-year plan.”

“Foreclosures are very sporadic in the (Deerfield) area,” Hausman said. “But when there is one, we see sometimes at least 20 offers.”

Hausman also attributes the uptick in home sales to the historically low mortgage interest rates.

“I used to see a lot of first-time home buys because of the first-time homeowner tax credit,” Hausman said. “But over the past three years, sales have steadily increased, even without the credit, because rates are so much lower.”

Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, said in a press release earlier this month that overall, 2012 was a good year for the national real estate market.

“Existing-home sales, new-home sales and housing starts are all recording notable gains this year in contrast with suppressed activity in the previous four years, and all of the major home price measures are showing sustained increases,” Yun said in the release.

However, Yun warned that the nation’s current financial crisis could alter those positive statistics.

“The huge federal budget deficit is likely to push up borrowing costs and raise inflation well above 2 percent,” Yun said in the release.

According to information from the National Association of Realtors, existing homes sales are up nationally 9 percent from last year, and national existing home prices are expected to rise 5 percent into 2013.

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