Anchorage residential sales are on track to set several records this year, according to reports published today by Alaska MLS, Inc.
The average price for properties sold this year through October is $337,320. This tops the 2007 high of $327,070 by three percent. Home values never suffered here: the average price hasn't been below $321,000 since 2007. Before that year, values were rising 8% to as much as 13% per year.
The pace of sales has been brisk, too. The total of homes sold so far this year is eleven percent above the first ten months of last year. The number of homes sold each month this year has exceeded the comparable month of all but two months of 2010.
With more sales in a rising price environment, market times are predictably getting shorter. It's been taking on average 59 days to sell a home this year, compared with 70 days last year.
This much market activity has depleted the inventory in virtually all price ranges. Divide the number of homes for sale by the number of sales in a year and one sees that there's only a two or three month supply in every price range, up to $500,000.
There's a five month supply from there to $750,000. A 5-6 month supply is considered a balanced market. So the 10-month supply of homes $750,000 to a million and the three-year supply over the million dollar mark represent the only soft part of the Anchorage market today.
Nothing suggests any significant change in this trend. If you are looking to make a purchase, now is the time to lock in the most favorable interest rates any of us have seen in our lifetimes. This ensures your most affordable cost-of-ownership going forward.
And if you have a property to sell, bring it to market now during this time of shortage and when prices are going up! You face less competition now than you will in the spring, and will capture these buyers who are faced with limited selection, and who are motivated by the knowledge that interest rates can only rise from current levels.
