STILL A GOOD TIME TO PURCHASE A HOME IN THE BATON ROUGE AREA

This week marks the one year anniversary of the great flood of 2016. A lot has transpired in the last year. Many Baton Rouge area residents are rebuilding their homes and their lives as they knew them before the flood. Taking a close look at the current real estate market, now is still a good time to purchase a home.

I recently surveyed some of my colleagues and they still feel good about this market. While real estate prices have risen slightly in some price points there are still powerful incentives for buyers to make a move now. Historically, low-interest rates are still a major factor positive market conditions. Bankrate.com indicates that the current rate as of August 8, 2017, is at 4.04% on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. That is phenomenal!

Taken altogether, it is important for a home buyer to be working with an experienced realtor.

In taking a look at some current multiple listing service data, homes in the $100,000-$149,900 price point are down 1.29% from last year this time. This could possibly be due to some of these lower-priced flood damaged homes coming to the market. Homes in the $150,000-$199,900 price point are up .57%. Homes in the $250,000-$299,999 price point are down .26%.

Some challenges in the current market are 1. there is only approximately a 3.23 month supply of homes available which is down from about 4.7 month supply available last year this time. What that statistic means is that there is more pressure on home prices to go up. 2. Also in surveying my colleagues, approximately 75% of them have been involved in multiple offer situations. These are situations where multiple buyers are trying to purchase the same home.

Taken altogether, it is important for a home buyer to be working with an experienced realtor. The current market is definitely a sellers’ market. Experience in dealing with multiple offer situations and aggressive negotiating factors are definitely things that a home buyer should consider.

I hope this information assist you in assessing the current market conditions.

JOSEPH DUPARD, SR
COLDWELL BANKER ONE
225-954-6168