Though winter won’t change to spring until March 20th, as Realtors in Barrington, it’s at exactly this time of year when we see the first signs of accelerating real estate activity and the unofficial start of the spring selling season. People who want to buy a home start contacting us for more info about available properties. People who want to sell a home call us for guidance about preparations, pricing, next steps and our recommendations for the best timing. One of the biggest things we’re hearing from sellers today sounds something like this:
“Because of the state of the economy, we’ve been sitting tight for a while now and waiting to sell our home. But we’d rather not wait any longer. Our needs have changed and we’re ready to make a move. So when is best time to put our home on the market? Should the For Sale sign go up now or should we wait?”
To answer this question, all we have to do is share the numbers in Barrington because our local real estate statistics speak volumes. To give you a quick overview of the data, here are a few simple visuals depicting some exciting new trends here in Barrington…
The first two charts below show how many single family homes, condos and townhomes closed in Barrington by month since 2009. Keep in mind that the time between contract and closing for financed, non-distressed transactions typically ranges from 45 to 90 days in our market. So the sales in January and February, for example, reflect contracts accepted in the later months of the previous year.
You can clearly see that the number of closings in Barrington jumps significantly in March and April each year and closings for both months were higher in 2011 than they’ve been in recent years. March and April closings represent contracts signed on properties within the early weeks and months of the year, in other words, RIGHT NOW!
There are home buyers out shopping TODAY and these sales will be among the finite number of closed 2012 Barrington transactions that we’ll see when we review the numbers a year from now.
If you want to increase the odds of your home selling in 2012, why put off what you can do today? The buyers in the market now who are looking for a home like yours will thank you for it. (In this chart, there is no line yet for 2012 because it’s still so early in the year on the date this post was published. We’ll update the chart with the latest statistics in the coming months.)
To look at things another way, check out this next chart which depicts the number of properties Under Contract by month. As you can see, the numbers so far for 2012 are remarkable. We’re off to a really strong start. In January of 2011, there were 25 residential Barrington properties listed in the MLS as Under Contract. In January of 2012, that number was 40 residential properties Under Contract.
That’s a 60 % increase!
And you don’t have to take my word for it. These numbers, courtesy of the local MLS (MRED – Midwest Real Estate Data LLC) speak for themselves.
Is the Barrington market gaining some momentum here? Only time will tell. But the trends we’re seeing early in the new year appear to be promising. We’ll be regularly tracking the latest real estate contracts and closings in the months ahead right here at 365Barrington.com so please stay tuned for our updates.
In the meantime, if you’d like to take a look at the specific statistics impacting your particular home, area or target neighborhood, we’ve done the research and would be happy to send our info your way. Just let us know a little more in the form below and we’ll follow up with the scoop on how things are selling specifically in your area of interest.
*Charts and Tables Created by The Luby Group with Data Courtesy of MRED LLC
