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By Dave DeWitte
The Gazette
After a drop of 10 percent in residential home sales for 2008, the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors expects a modest rebound in 2009.
“The environment is there for us to see a fairly healthy real estate market” in 2009, said Jeff Dill, president-elect for the association and a representative of Lepic-Kroeger Realtors, at an end-of-year news conference Monday. He said sales should be equal to or a little better than last year.
Dill said an overlooked factor in the 2008 sales decline was the reduction in the number of homes on the market. For the first nine months of the year, he said the number of listings was down about 8 percent.
The average time on market, a closely watched measure of how long houses take to sell, increased by 10 days in 2008.
Residential sales declined 20 percent for the year in the Coralville submarket, more than in any other. Association President Becky Martel attributed the decline to early summer flooding that made it difficult or impossible to show property for part of the year.
The North Liberty market was down by only 6 percent, the least of any submarket, while the Iowa City market was down 14 percent, from 990 units to 853 units sold.
Enrollment trends in the Iowa City school district don’t portend a strong increase in sales. Associate Superintendent Jim Behle said the district gained 30 students in 2008 versus 450 students in 2007.
“Last year was very abnormal and this year (2008) was very abnormal,” Behle said of the steep contrast in the number of new students. The district had been experiencing annual growth of one-half percent to 1 percent in student enrollment before 2007, which was equivalent to 100 to 130 students per year.
Dill said the climate for sellers could get a boost from a slowdown in winter building. He said many builders have historically put “holes in the ground” in the fall in anticipa tion of building homes to place on the market in the spring. The number of new housing starts last fall was down substantially, Dill said, potentially reducing the competition from new homes for sellers of existing houses.
The association encouraged first-time homebuyers to take part in its free homebuyer education class, a two-day course that will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on successive Saturdays, Feb. 28 and March 7.
Completion of the course allows the participant to receive a Mortgage Readiness Certificate needed to become a qualified buyer for the first “Realtor Homes for Our Future” project home.
The home at 894 McCollis ter Court in Sandhill Estates is being built using sustainable building practices and incorporating universal design principles intended to make the home comfortable and accessible through all stages of life.
Through a combination of incentives built into the program by participants, the buyer will pay only $125,000 for the $212,500 home. Requirements for buyers to qualify include an annual income of $58,000 or less.
Other partners in the project are SouthGate Development, MidwestOne Bank, Extend the Dream Foundation and Corridor Design. |
