Shrewsbury Single-Family Home Sales Sizzle!

The temperature isn’t the only thing that’s HOT right now in Shrewsbury. The real estate market is sizzling, too! People have discovered what a great place it is to live here, and at mid year 2012 they’ve bought twice as many single-family homes as they did a year ago. If you've been following my posts you know that I'm not a REALTOR who only shares the good news with you, or who always tells you that things are looking good. I'm a data-driven person, and what I see is that right now Shrewsbury is the only town in our area where all of the 4 key real estate indicators (Sales, Listings, Absorption Rate and Average Sale Price) are positive:

   2011    2012            Comment



Sales (Demand)      12      25 Many more homes sold.



Listings (Supply)      25      23 Slightly fewer homes on market.



Months' Supply (Absorption Rate)    12.6     5.9 Homes selling MUCH faster.



Average Sale $ (Value) $416,075 $488,715 17.4% higher sales price.



Average Listing $ $442,849 $519,735 17.5% higher listing price.



 Avg Sale/List %    94.0%    94.0% Similar Sales/Listing %.

 

If you’ve been thinking about buying a home in Shrewsbury, you’d better start looking, because my prediction is that home prices will be increasing dramatically in the next half of the year. All of the signs are there. You might look at the 100% increase in the number of sales or the 17.4% higher average sales price. Both of those certainly impress me, but as a local REALTOR who lives in the area, to me they don’t carry as much weight as the change in the Absorption Rate.

The Absorption Rate is the time (in months) that it will take to sell all of the current listings if homes continue to sell at the current rate. In a “normal” market, the Absorption Rate is between 5 and 7 months; if it’s more than 7 months we’re said to be in a “buyer’s market” and if it’s less than 5 months we’re said to be in a “seller’s market”. Take a look at what has happened in the past year: we’ve gone from 12.6 months of inventory (a real “buyer’s market”) to 5.9 months, which is technically a “normal market”, but pretty close to becoming a “seller’s market”.

If you’d like a detailed breakdown of June’s Shrewsbury home sales, just email me (ldunikoski@dianeturton.com) and I’ll be glad to give you the details. If you want to live on “The Peninsula”, right now Shrewsbury is the town with the lowest average cost of a single-family home. It has everything that its more expensive neighboring towns have: close to Red Bank’s downtown; close to water and the Jersey shore; easy access to NYC by care, train or ferry; and great schools.  I'm not a pushy person, but my advice is not to wait too long- start looking at the homes that are currently on the market, because the best values get snapped up fast!

Have a great 4^th of July, and please remember to display the American flag at your home tomorrow!

Len