During a conversation with a potential client the topic of declining values was discussed.  Actually how it began was “Kathi, what do you think is going to happen with home values this year”.  From a buyer’s view point this translates to:  is this a good time to buy?  From a seller’s view point it means:  is this a good time to sell?

Here are some statistics:  If a market is driven by foreclosures and short sales (distressed properties), the values of homes decline as the number of sales of distressed properties increase.  An example of this would be where distressed properties are 9% of the market, but account for 59% of the sales.

Let’s put this into perspective.  Eugene and surrounding area currently has approximately 1952 homes actively for sale on the Multiple Listing Service.  In the last 30 days 208 homes closed.  59% of these homes were normal sales and 29% was Bank Owned and 12% were Short Sales.   Our market here is comprised of 21% of distressed properties that account for 41% of sales. Compare that to the above example of 9% of distressed properties accounting for 59% of sales.

The Eugene market has foreclosures and short sales, but the majority of sales are normal sales.  Our market is considerably more stable than most.

Anybody care to guess where the 59% of sales example is?