Apr 11, 2009 7:14 pm US/Central
Tax Credit, Low Rates And Deals Spur Home Sales
PLYMOUTH, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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Low interest rates plus an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers are luring more people to buy. It also helps that motivated sellers aren't being greedy with their prices.
CBS
Finally, some good news in the housing market. For the first time in a long while, Twin Cities home sales are up 21 percent from where they were a year ago. Over 4,400 pending sales were made that month. This is the largest increase since December.
There were plenty of people looking for homes Saturday. Tom Harding lives in Plymouth, but he and his family want to move near the Lake of the Isles.
"It's more of the location that I'm looking for in a house," said Harding. "Interest rates have been low for a while and I don't think it's -- it's not going to get higher for a while. It's more the location and the atmosphere that I'm looking for."
But low interest rates plus an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers are luring more people to buy. It also helps that motivated sellers aren't being greedy with their prices.
"Sellers are bringing their homes a little bit closer to market rate. There was some perception from sellers that their homes in the old market were worth just a little bit more and the buyers weren't buying the homes at those prices," said Steve Havig, the President of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.
Last month, the average price of a home in the metro was about $215,000. That was down 2.3 percent from a year ago. One realtor said sellers have to be savvy.
"You're probably not going to get an offer that's gonna be at full price. It's not that it never happens, but it's so rare, it's so different from what it was three or four years ago," said Mary Thorpe-Mease, a realtor with Coldwell Banker Burnet.
She added that buyers need to hold out for a good bargain.
"They want value; they want to know that they are getting a great house for a better price than they would have gotten, say, a year ago. They don't want to be stupid and pay too much," said Thorpe-Mease.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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