Housing Market Boom Not Fazed By Winter Harshness

Real Estate

When looking back at previous reports of the housing market for the last decade, it can be seen that every single time the winter weather comes about, there is a slump in the housing market. The homebuyers decline in number and so does the number of houses going up for sale in the market. This then picks up once again beginning in the spring if all other market conditions remain favorable. This winter weather however things have been quite surprising for all those interested in the housing market. Despite some new lows in temperature, the housing market continued to grow slowly but surely. An inquiry to a majority of agents in the market will prove that many surveys show that in this winter, the market refused to follow its yearly trend of slumping but instead went against the grain and continued upwards.

HousingPulse conducted a survey of the market for this winter and by the end of December, the market was still not showing any signs of slowing down. On the contrary, December had the highest figures recorded in 2012 for current homeowners, first time buyersand those who invested in the market. Thomas Popik who is a research director was quoted as saying that their surveys were clearly showing that this winter is not like the usual ones. Non-distressed properties were and are not staying on the market as long as they usually would in the winter. With the indexes that have already been ascertained, it is evident that there will be a significant boom in home buying this coming summer.

Campbell Surveys also had to determine what condition the housing market is in by evaluating the average market times, offers, sales prices and sealed transactions. All of these recorded an increase in figures for the year 2012.  The amount of time houses are spending on the market came down from an index of 43.3 to 40 while the offers index spiked to 61.1in just one month. The number of sealed transactions also saw a small but significant increase of 3.2 on the index from November to December. Among the 2,500 real estate agents countrywide used in the Campbell Survey’s research as respondents, a majority reported that this December had much higher traffic than usual. There were not too many properties for sale but the number of home buyers had gone up significantly.