Finally, A Busy Open House

I held my townhouse listing open yesterday afternoon and expected to have plenty of time to blog because, let's face it, open houses have been REALLY SLOW the last couple of years. Needless to say, I was pretty pleased to have a nice turnout. And real buyers to boot. The $8000 first time home buyer tax credit is definitely moving the under $300,000 housing market. Hopefully it won't all fall apart when the credit ends next April.

I thought I'd crunch some numbers for housing sales in area communities. Below are the active vs. pending sales percentages. I derived these percentages by dividing the number of active listings into the number of pending listings (homes with offers accepted). For example, if a community has 200 actives and 25 pendings, that equals 12.5%. Here's what the percentages mean:

0%-45% is a buyer's market
45%-55% is a neutral market
55%-100% is a seller's market

What does that mean for local communities? Here are the percentages for some:

Gig Harbor 19%
North Tacoma 21%
Lakewood 29%
University Place 20%
Spanaway 55%

Basically, this is telling me that houses are selling. With the exception of Spanaway, it's still a buyer's market but the buyer's are buying when they see a good deal. Spanaway is a borderline seller's market and I'm not surprised because it's median home price is perfect for first time home buyers.