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We are proud to announce that  Diane Sorensen, Ryan Lickfelt, and Traci Atkinson have recently joined us as sales agents.  As you might remembert, Diane and Ryan worked for us previously and we are pleased to welcome them back.

All of these agents have been in the real estate business for many years and bring with them extensive knowledge and experience.

The addition of these three agents helps us in achieving our goals as well as helping us to  continue to give the best possible customer service to the buyers and sellers that we serve in the Hutchinson and surrounding area.

We saw a significant increase in housing activity at Hometown Realty during the months of August, September, and October.  People seemed to gain some confidence in their jobs and the general economy here in the Hutchinson, MN area.  A number of people who sold and purchased homes in the last few months have jobs at 3M, Hutchinson Technology, Hutchinson Community Hospital, etc. 

One of the primary buying reasons that I heard was the fact that the interest rates were so low, that they knew if they were going to make a move it was definitely time to do so.  They understood that they may not have a more advantageous time to be purchasing a home than right now.

As we move into the fall and winter I hope that people will continue to realize that housing prices are very good (for buyers) and  coupled with the low interest rates, it makes their dreams of home ownership so reachable.

The biggest drops in sales since the credit ended can be seen in the traditional seller market (i.e., anything that’s not a foreclosure or short sale) and in the middle price ranges from $150,000 to $350,000. Pending sales have dropped in those ranges from 1,085 the week the credit ended to 384 for the week ending May 22. In sum, it may be a difficult summer market for home sellers.

The good news is that new supply is also slowing, which means the market is already self-correcting to avoid a surge in unneeded inventory. New listings fell to 1,581 for the same reporting week, a decline of 15.8 percent from this time last year.

The Supply-Demand Ratio has been updated for June and shows a figure of 5.05, which means there are 5.05 homes for sale for each buyer in the month. That’s a 10.9 percent increase over the mark seen a year ago and is a result of the decline in buyer activity.

Here in Hutchinson, MN the market activity for May, 2010 was still pretty good. We’ll have to see if our housing market sees the same declines as reported for the Twin Cities market.