What is happening with the real estate market in Newtown, Bucks County, 18940?
Almost wherever I go, I am asked the question, “how is the real estate market?” I have many tools at my disposal, to help answer that question.
The first answer I always give, is that it depends. It depends on whether you are a buyer or seller. Depends on whether you are a first time home buyer. If you are a seller, it depends on where your house is located, and it depends on where your house falls, price wise, relative to other houses on the market, in the same area.
I did a brief examination of the statistics in Lower Makefield/Yardley, in a previous post, using a comprehensive statistical analysis that I share on my blog. I will do the same in this post, for Newtown and the 18940 zip code.
Median price vs. days on the market
The chart to the right, tracks the median price of single family houses in Newtown, vs. the days on the market. As you can see, since September of 2008, the median price has consistantly been dropping. For all single family houses, you can see that the average days on the market is currently around 220. That is a sobering statistic, if your goal is to get your house sold. Basically, average days on the market, for all single family homes in Newtown, is now over 7 months!
Lets look at what happens when we look at the same data, for the upper quartile of homes currently on the market.
The next chart, shows the same information, but this time we are looking at only the upper quartile of houses, based on median price.
Median price vs. Days on Market for upper quartile of homes, in 18940
First, looking at the next chart, you can see that the median price in the upper quartile, has been dropping consistantly. Now the days on the market, has remained level, for the past couple of months. However, these more expensive homes, are now averaging over 9 months on the market. Again, please keep in mind that this is an average. You can see that it is challenging to get expensive homes sold.
Just as a comparison, lets look at one last chart. The next chart shows the same date, but for the lowest quartile priced homes.
Median price vs. days on market lowest quartile
Again, you can see that the lowest quartile pricing has declined as above. You will note that as expected, the lower priced houses are taking less time to sell. In fact, clearly, as the price decreases, the average days on the market also decreases.
All 3 of these charts show very clearly, that expensive houses are taking a long time to sell. For sellers, it has never been more important to price your house correctly.
You should be able to see why, when asked how the market is, I always answer, “it depends”. If you are trying to sell an expensive house, if it is not priced aggresively, it will be on the market for a long, long time.
I can email all sorts of statistical evaluations of any market in which I work. If you are interested, please contact me. I can also provide you with a very sophisticated, market overview, that will show you houses that are active, pending and sold, within about a 5 mile radius of any address in areas that I serve. These reports are emailed automatically, monthly, and are a great way to really stay on top of what the market is doing. If you are interested, just email me.
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