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Miss-Lou real estate going steady despite trends

Published Saturday, June 14, 2008

The trend of national headlines scream of a recession and warn home sellers of a looming market failure. Statistics within these articles tend to show slow home sells and lower selling prices.

But Natchez isn’t trendy. At least when real estate statistics are viewed on a local level.

“The thing about real estate is that it is all local,” said Butch Stewart, owner and broker for Coldwell Banker Stewart Realty. “Different markets react in different ways so you can’t really apply national statistics to the Natchez area.”

One area in which the Natchez real estate market has faired well when compared to national statistics is the number of days a house is on the market.

Inman News, a national real estate news source, recently reported that the average time a house spends on the market is close to seven months. Stewart said such alarming statistics just aren’t true in the Miss-Lou.

“There has been very little change in the number of days a house sits on the market before being sold,” Stewart said. “In 2007, it took an average of 87 days to sell in this area. Today, houses are on the market for about three months before being sold.”

The few day increase over one-year period is slight when compared to the increase seen the in the Nashville area real estate market. According to The Williamson County Association of Realtors, the average number of days on the market for a residential home in Williamson County, Tenn. has increased by 24 days from May 2007 through May 2008.

The greater-Nashville area has seen similar increases according to Nashvillemls.com. Days on the market for home sellers has increased anywhere from 20 to 40 days depending on the area.

Sue Stedman of Crye-Leike Stedman Realtors in Natchez said that home selling pace has stayed steady, as have prices.

From Jan. 1, 2007, until June 12, 2007, the average selling price of homes in the Miss-Lou was $129,466 with homes getting about $65 per square foot. During the same time for 2008, the average selling price was $147,685 with a per square foot price of $69.

Stewart said national statistics are skewed by housing declines in metropolitan areas where over development can be a problem.

“Metro areas have over built and are struggling to find buyers,” Stewart said. “That isn’t a problem (in Natchez) because there are not any 300-house subdivisions being built.”

Several factors have combined to keep the real estate market strong in the Natchez area. One of which is the steady number of houses for sale. The inventory of houses fluctuates slightly from day to day but typically stays between 200 and 250 houses for sale. This week, there were 241 houses listed for sale by the Multiple Listing Service in the Natchez area.

Stedman said the consistent inventory keeps competition steady and translates into quicker selling times for homeowners

“Here we didn’t have the glut of new houses being built the way other markets did. In Jackson there were lots of builders building lots of homes,” Stedman said. “They were building a large number of spec homes where here most of the new construction has been for custom built homes.”

Although the market has remained strong in Natchez, it is still important to properly price a home Stedman and Stewart both said.

Stewart said overpriced homes tend to stay on the market longer than homes that are properly priced from the get-go.

“Value is a function of time,” Stewart said. “If you are willing to wait then you may be able to get more, but houses that are properly priced don’t sit on the market as long.”

Stedman agreed that pricing is a key to selling in a reasonable amount of time since buyers are aware of market value.

We always recommend pricing according to market value for a quicker sale,” Stedman said. “People tend to understand market value and if a property is priced right then they tend to offer closer to the asking price. If buyers think a home is over priced they tend to give a low ball offer.”