Lisa Simpson
Jul 31,2009
In: Finance

A Streak of Light Entering the Housing Market

ray-of-hope

For many months the news about the real estate has been gloomy but recently a streak of light is entering the housing market. As per latest statistics, sale of residential units are picking up. In some pockets the sale price of the houses are also moving up. One such area is the region of the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa.

Actually the name Quad Cities is erroneous because there are five important cities that comprise this region hugging the Mississippi River. These cities are Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in Illinois.

This area of the Quad Cities has suffered badly at the hands of the housing storm. Slowly the weather is changing. Caroline Ruhl is a realtor. She said that in March and April her firm sold about a third more of houses in comparison to their deals a year ago, during the same period. She opines that this is because of a natural rise in demand after a hibernation period of about six months.

Currently nearly half the houses that are sold in USA come from the distressed category. But this is not so in the Quad Cities. Here too economic downturn has been intense but unemployment has been at 6.4% in contrast to the national figure of 9.4%. This has led to a feeling of bonhomie.

Tammy Williams and Ronny Pianca are both realtors. They showcase old and new houses driving down the five cities. According to Williams the sale price hovers around $140,000. Moreover one good sign is that the houses are not sitting on the shop shelves for long. Williams recounts one lucky sale – “First day on the market, seven showings and five offers.” The house was sold at $8,000 more than the listed price.

For the Quad Cities this is nothing unusual. During the first three months of this year the median price of single family units spiked by about 14% from what it was a year previously to touch $100,000. In the entire country this was the second highest median price hike. This trend has spelt good news to many who are trying to sell their houses.

She said, “I have found that some of my buyers I have [come] across in the last couple of months think that every house they write an offer on they can get $10,000 to $15,000 to $20,000 off the house, and that is not the case here. The average out of all the home sales is 96 percent of the list price, so we’re doing great here.”