Eugene and Springfield sales stats 11/25/06
RMLS October 2006 Reporting Period
October Residential Highlights
When comparing October 2006 to October 2005 in the Greater Lane County area, new listings increased 15.1%. However, closed sales were down 15.2% and pending sales decreased 13.4%. See table above.
Year-to-Date Trends
When comparing 2006 year-to-date with the same time period in 2005, new listings increased 12.1%. On the other hand, closed sales decreased 8.5% and pending sales dropped 11.2%.
Appreciation
Comparing the 12 months ending with October 2006 to the 12 immediately prior, the average sale price in the Greater Lane County area climbed 14.4% ($251,200 v. $219,600). Using the same formula we can see that the median sale price increased 15.9% ($220,000 v. $189,000).
By Galand Haas
"I think that I’ll wait for Spring!" I am hearing this a great deal these days from home owners who are thinking about selling their home. Many home owners are thinking that the current softer market may be better by the Spring of next year. Of course this is a possibility, but along with waiting comes a good chance of finding a market in the Spring where home values are less than they are at the present time. If we look at the statistics, our current home market shows that the inventories of homes for sale are certainly up from 6 months ago and the time period for a sale to take place has also increased. The interesting fact is that statistics also indicate that home prices are not dropping. This is a fact that most likely will not continue if the inventory of homes for sale continues to build. What we could find by Spring is a better market with more buyer interest, but home values could be significantly less than they are today. With the current market conditions as they are, waiting to put your home on the market is certainly a gamble in regards to your sales price. Savvy home sellers are making the decision to put their homes on the market now, price them competitively and not take the chance that their home may lose value over the next six months. If yearly trends repeat themselves, I would think that the present time through about the month of March may be an optimum time for obtaining a higher value home sale.
Christmas Stockings Many families will hang large brightly colored Christmas stockings over the fireplace or on the walls of their homes during Christmastime in the hopes that Santa Claus will fill them with toys, treats, and goodies. In fact, families have been hanging stockings for as long as there have been stockings!
It’s hard for kids to understand today, but for many hundreds of years, most people only had one or two suits of clothing to wear. When their cloths were dirty, they would be washed and then hung up (hopefully near a fire) to dry. Non-essential clothing, such as socks and gloves were especially valuable and a child was unlikely to have more than one pair and was expected to take good care of that one! If a parent wanted to "hide" a treat (such as a small piece of candy) where they were sure it would be found, they would put it in a child’s stocking and it would be found the next morning.
When Clement Clarke Moore published his famous poem "Twas the night before Christmas" in 1822, the first paragraph talked about hanging stockings:
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.
Eventually, it became a general tradition that Christmas gifts were left in the stockings hung up on Christmas Eve. Any parent who has a child can easily understand that the kids figured out that if they hung bigger stockings, they might get bigger or more treats, so the size of the stockings grew with each passing Christmas. Even when the families celebrating Christmas grew wealthy enough that they exchanged larger boxed presents, the tradition of hanging up stockings continued (as did the warning that if you were not well behaved, you might not get any presents – just a lump of coal in your stocking).
So be sure to hang up your stocking and hope that Santa Claus brings you a present instead of a lump of coal.
