Local Housing Market Update

Between both local and national reports about real estate market and housing trends, there are allot of different opinions on where our current housing market stands. We thought we would take the opportunity to provide a snapshot of how the local housing market is performing from our point of view for this year to date. Along with our thoughts for 2013 year to date are some pictures of a home we built on Lake George this past year for your viewing pleasure :)

To begin, The Michaels Group currently has 7 active communities with homesites available for sale. 3 of the sites have model homes and sales centers where we meet customers for the first time, present the model homes, plans and options, and hold our open houses. Our model homes and sales centers are located at The Meadows of Mill Hill in Guilderland, The Enclave of Sheldon Hills in Halfmoon, and Woodscape II in Moreau. These model home locations serve as the sales office for each of their own communities as well as other sites such as Hiland Crossings and Sutton Place in Queensbury, Siena Lane in East Greenbush, and Knox Lane in Glens Falls.

So far this year, we have seen a tremendous amount of new and returning customers to the model homes and sales centers. We track our traffic through the model homes and sales centers weekly, as it is a good indicator for future sales, how are marketing efforts are performing, and if our projects are in a desirable location. So far in 2013 we have seen traffic numbers more than double what we saw in 2012. An encouraging sign about the traffic we are seeing, is much of the traffic is new people who have not been to the site before. This is a good sign because it tells us that there are more and more people who are ready to start the homebuying process. It also tells us, our new marketing efforts are driving new people to our sites!

The next thing we look at is return visits to our sites. We like to stay in tune with the return visits as it tells us allot about our the first impression our company is giving off. We are eager to hear if customers who visit our site for the first time, return to see us again the next week, weekend, or even months. It tells us that the customer was impressed with what they saw and after thinking about their future homebuying decisions on their own, they decided to return to see us. We are happy to say that we are seeing a steady amount of revisitors to our site. Many of these revisits are within a week or 2 of their first visit as well, which tells us buyers in today's market are ready to move much quicker than in the past.

From here when customers are looking to move forward, take a "hold" on an available homesite. This is the beginning stage of moving a customer to a contract. We currently have 15 homesites that are in the "hold" position where we are pricing custom options in order finalize the contract. We are currently very pleased with this number, as customers who take a "hold" tend to move forward with a contract.

Of course the best indicator for the housing market is contracts and sales. Currently, we have sold 10 homes in 2013. This is a very good start to the year for us. It is a good indicator for what we should see for the rest of the year, as January and February tend to be slower months for real estate sales. Also, another number we look at closely is closings. We currently have 22 deals that are in process which are expected to close this year.

These numbers and trends above are reasons to get excited for this coming year. Based on what we are seeing, customers are in a better position this year than they have been in years past. There are more buyers out there, and they are ready to move. Many buyers still need to sell their current homes, but the velocity for the re-sale home sales seems to be picking up as well. That tells us the entire real estate market, and not just the new home market is starting to gain some momentum. There is also some urgency in the market this year as well that we have not seen in quite some time. Interest rates are still historically low, however they won't stay like this forever and people are realizing that this may be the best time there is to buy a home.

So that is our take on the market. We are seeing some very encouraging signs and trends. There is still a long way to go for the housing market to be "normal" again, however, we are seeing the beginning stages of that now. We hope things continue to improve and we can finally be out from under the tough times in real estate of the past few years.

We hope you enjoyed our thoughts and pictures along the way. Be sure to subscribe to our blog over to the right for the latest news and updates from The Michaels Group!