The first time home buyer credit has now been extended and expanded to include many buyers who currently or have recently owned homes. Contact a member of our team to discuss your situation, but basically most first time homebuyers (anyone who has not owned a home in the past three years) may qualify for $8000 and many people that have owned a home for five years out of the previous eight years may qualify for a $6500 credit. As of this writing, buyers need to have an offer accepted by April 30, 2010 and close on the purchase by June 30, 2010.
The market in the St Cloud area is getting close to the seasonal slow-down we typically experience from late November through the first of the year. Love it or hate it, without the extension on the buyer credit, our market would have fallen off a cliff this winter. With the extension we should see a bit of a push right now before the holidays and then a strong spring. Of course what we are really doing with this credit is pulling the future buyers forward so when the credit does expire we’ll see the market swing quickly back to the other extreme and it might be years before it normalizes.
Here are the market trends for the first three quarters of 2009 versus the same period last year. Home prices and the number of homes sold continue to decline and the length of time it takes to sell continues to increase.
| 2008 | 2009 | Change | |
| Average Price | $168,753 | $154,226 | -9% |
| Average Days on Market | 166 | 172 | +4% |
| Number of Homes Sold | 946 | 865 | -9% |
All homes sold in St Cloud, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, Waite Park and St Joseph Jan 1 - Sept 30.
However, if we distinguish between the foreclosed and non-foreclosed homes we see that there is a big difference in their sales prices and length of time on the market. Since the massive foreclosure market is still a relatively new phenomenon we did not differentiate between them for the first part of last year so we cannot do the same year over year comparison, but here is what has happened so far this year.
| Lender Owned | Non-Lender Owned | |
| Average Price | $114,466 | $170,944 |
| Average Days on Market | 118 | 187 |
All homes sold in St Cloud, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, Waite Park and St Joseph Jan 1 - Sept 30, 2009.
Foreclosures aside, it seems that the prices have leveled off. We hope to see stable and eventually slightly increasing prices in the next couple years; but we’ll have to see what happens when the market is no longer fueled by government intervention.
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