Wow, what a weekend. Our phone started ringing mid-week last week and it just gained momentum as we neared the weekend. The bulk of it was from local Realtors calling to schedule showings on our listings for the weekend. As the weekends are a big time for showings, Friday tends to be a big day for scheduling. This past two weeks has been so active that I'm certain this spring is going to make up for a slow 4th quarter in 2006.

I'm encouraged by the recent activity in the market. We listed 4 properties the week ending Feb 16 and 2 of the pended within a week. Both were under $150,000.

Of most interest to home owners? What is your home worth? This is usually the information of most interest to sellers when I to speak with someone about listing their home for sale.

Median prices of single-family homes in 4Q 2006 fell a bit with percentage change from 4Q 2005. Those medians are:

Region Price Change
Northeast $274,600, -2.5%
Midwest $161,800, -4.2%
South $181,700, -3.7%
West $355,100, 0.4%
USA $219,300,-2.7%
Source: National Association of Realtors

Home prices are likely to begin to increase once again this spring. The National Association of Realtors predicted this on Thursday after they reported that median prices fell in 73 metro areas in the final three months of 2006. David Lereah, NAR's chief economist said "When we get the figures for this spring, I expect to see a discernible improvement in both sales and prices. Even in an overall sluggish fourth quarter, 71 areas had price gains, the NAR said. And 14 of those areas saw double-digit year-over-year percentage gains.

As for Bloomington, Indiana, we were not one of the areas affected by the so called Real Estate Bubble. We did not have a bubble to burst! The media is responsible for the 'scare' that we have experienced here but the sellers aren't buying it! Sellers are experiencing longer days on the market. Buyers are trying to low ball based on what they hear and read in the news. Sellers are frustrated but not desperate and their patience is paying off. It makes me chuckle a bit to see parents of out of state students, primarily from areas like Chicago, DC & New York, come along and make these offers of 90% of the asking price for good properties near campus. They just don't get it. They are taking their experiences in their region and seeing it as an opportunity to take advantage of sellers in our market. Well, it's not happening folks. Spring is here and this is the time of year where this type of market is very strong. I see it getting stronger this year and I think it is already better than prime market time last year.

And what about that bubble, it does affect our sales in a different way. Those who are losing equity by the tens of thousands of dollars are coming to this market with their students or jobs and they have houses they are losing money on or can not sell. This affects their buying power when they get here. This in turn is part of the reason for our longer average days on market.

NAR economist Lawrency Yun says: "At least the bottom appears to have already occurred." This is in reference to the markets where losses in value have been significant. He goes on to say: "It looks like the figures will be improving." NAR pointed out that despite the recent downturn in prices, gains for typical single-family homes the past five years have been robust in many metro areas — and explosive in others. In Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., for example, prices have soared 155.3% in the past five years.

And so there you have it. A busy weekend is always exciting for a Realtor! I love it when my sellers are happy.