ROCKFORD, Ill (WIFR) — The overall lack of housing inventory suppressed buyer choices this year. Inventory rose in the last few months.
Housing numbers
“Even though it’s a sellers market, I think it’s a good opportunity for buyers right now,” says Rockford Area Realtors President Rose Schlickman. “There’s more inventory for them to choose from. I’ve got buyers now that are looking and they’re not immediately moving on houses. They’re stalling a little bit, it gives them a little more opportunity to buy.”
Realtors look at absorption rates to determine if it’s a buyers or sellers market. “We take our current amount of inventory and how long it would take us to sell everything without adding one more unit,” explains Rockford Area Realtor’s Conor Brown. “So a balanced market would represent about six months of supply.”
They’ve seen less than three months supply in 2019. However, there are factors working in favor of a buyer.
“We’re seeing increase in inventory, we’re seeing interest rates at historic lows and we’re seeing price year over year, just a small uptick,” says Brown. November’s volume for year over year saw a 13 percent decrease of total numbers of sales. It allowed inventory to rise.
“With our prices we’re just shy of $140,000 for November, which again is at record highs but it’s only represented just under 2 percent year over year price growth,” says Brown.
Brown says the favorable December weather conditions will help heading into the new year. “Our outlook, certainly a lot of it’s going to be weather driven, when you have wonderful weeks like we are this week you’re going to see a lot of buyer activity, a lot of people out there hunting for those homes that are on the market, so we see this certainly as a positive sign.”
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