Archive for the 'Buying' Category
Hartford Multi-Family Opportunities
I was just messing around with some data in the Multiple Listing Service. If you’re a real estate investor, toying with the idea of becoming a real estate investor, or a home buyer that would consider purchasing and living in a multi-family- you should take a very strong look at Hartford right now.
Year-to-date, multi-family homes sales are down 24% in Hartford, compared to the same timeframe in 2007. The median price for multi-families in Hartford is down 37% this year, compared to the same timeframe in 2007. And there is a whopping 15.4 months of multi-family inventory on the market in Hartford right now. That means if no more multi-families were listed in Hartford, it would take 15.4 months to sell what’s currently out there based on the current rate of closings.
As I mentioned the other day in my Short Sale post, 15% of the available multi-families are short sales. If you’ve got time and some cash, this may be an excellent opportunity for you to score a bargain in Hartford.
Short Sale Searches Coming Soon
Short sales are becoming more common these days, whether we like it or not. A short sale occurs when the sale of a property will not generate enough proceeds to cover what the seller owes their mortgage lender(s).
Offers on short sale properties must be approved by the seller’s lender before they can be officially accepted. And when a short sale property is listed in the Multiple Listing Service, the agent must call out language that it is indeed a short sale and it requires lender approval. Lender approval often takes months to receive, as the bank must do their own appraisal, a littany of paperwork, and often times negotiate with secondary lien holders in order to approve the sale.
Right now, there is no way for me to quickly find short sale properties, as the CT Multiple Listing Service does not have a required field which denotes a property is a short sale. Luckily, they will be adding this searchable field at the end of August and it will make my job a lot easier. Here’s why…
This morning one of my investor buyer’s called me to find out about short sales in Hartford. Because there is no searchable field, I had to look through all of the properties manually, both single family homes and multi family homes.
As of today, out of the 335 multi family homes for sale in Hartford, 51 of them are short sale or bank owned properties. That’s 15% of the market! The same is true with single family homes available for sale, out of the 153 single family homes, 23 are designated as a short sale or bank owned. Again, 15% of the market.
This is good news for my investor. They have time on their side and lots to choose from. The searchable short sale field will also make it easier for me to monitor area towns to see how the percentage of short sales compare, and when they increase or decrease. Will we actually work through the short sale inventory, or will it continue to sit and move towards foreclosure, eventually becoming bank owned?
Greater Hartford Real Estate Market Statistics- Condos
I recently posted the latest real estate statistics for single family homes in Greater Hartford. Below are the latest real estate statistics for condos in Greater Hartford.
I pulled the time period of April through July (essentially the spring market) and compared 2008 to 2007. A few things to keep in mind; some towns simply have more condo complexes than others, some towns have lots of new condo construction going on while others do not, some condo stock is for 55+ owners only and I did not separate those out.
All data came from the CT Multiple Listing Service and is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed…
My takeaways…
1. If buyers are looking for a deal, they may want to focus on towns with Months of Inventory shaded yellow. These towns are all indicating a Buyer’s market (more than 6 months of inventory). However, it is still important to look at the overall inventory situation in the price range you’re interested in, as it might be somewhat different than the town’s overall condo market.
2. Months of Inventory may be understated in some cases, as new construction condos may not enter every available unit in the Multiple Listing Service, so they can’t be counted for my analysis. Sometimes a new condo complex will have only a few listings in the MLS as a random sample, even though they have many more units available for sale. This causes inventory estimates to be understated.
3. For the most part, condos are sitting much longer than they did last year. In many cases, on average, they sit for longer on the market than a single family home in the same town.
4. Median prices seem to be down in most towns as well. Part of this decline may be attributed to more newer construction selling in 2007 than 2008, therefore inflating the median price in 2007 with higher priced new condos.