Manchester Vermont Real Estate Blog

The sales figures for our local market through the first three quarters of 2010 point to a modest rebound in home prices in the area while transaction volume levels remain flat with the previous two years.

Through the end of September 139 properties have sold with an average sales price of $369,700 and a median sales price of $264,000. These numbers compare to an average sales price in 2009 of $326,120 and a median sales price of $231,250, giving us gains of 13% and 14% depending on which measure you choose to look at. It remains to be seen whether these gains will hold up through the end of the fourth quarter, but if they do it suggests that 2009 may have been the year when house prices finally bottomed out in our area.

Looking at the transaction levels for the year, I am projecting that the final figure for the year will be right around 200 transactions. This is based on the 139 transactions noted above for the first three quarters, the additional 18 properties sold in October, the 39 properties currently under contract (most of which should close by the end of the year), and assuming a few additional properties will go under contract and close before year end. This number is just slightly above the average of 195 transactions per year over the past two years and is still significantly below the average of 368 per year between 2002 – 2005.

Currently there are 591 properties on the market for sale. I suspect there are a large number of additional properties where the owners would like to sell if they could. Maybe they have been on the market already but have pulled the house off because there hasn’t been any action, or perhaps they are reluctant to put it on the market because they can’t get the price they want. Based on just the houses that are on the market, we have almost a three year supply of inventory.

With the current supply-demand relationship I don’t expect much further strengthening in prices until the dynamic changes. But at least buyers can look at what has happened so far in 2010 with some hope that perhaps we have passed the bottom of the market and have hopefully reached a point where prices can stabilize.