'April is the cruelest month'... and nationally, many real estate agents may agree

T.S. Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land opens with the line: "April is the cruelest month..." And, it looks like many real estate agents would likely agree, at least, according to The National Association of Realtors (NAR)! NAR reported recently that despite six gains in the past nine months for the number of homes sold nationally, April showed a decline in transaction volume for exisiting homes. That is, the number of homes sold in April fell when compared to March 2011 and April 2010.

In addition to the slide in existing home sales on the national level, a survey of real estate agents (conducted by NAR on a national level) indicated that 36% of survey respondents saw a contract either cancelled, delayed or renegotiated due to low appraisals in the month of April. Specifically, the article states:

A parallel NAR practitioner survey2 shows 11 percent of Realtors® report a contract was cancelled in April from an appraisal coming in below the price negotiated between a buyer and seller, 10 percent had a contract delayed, and 14 percent said a contract was renegotiated to a lower sales price as a result of a low appraisal.

Yikes! 36% Of respondents experienced an appraisal issue that impacted their ability to expediently close a transaction.

I am stunned by this result, as fortunately, we are experiencing nothing of the sort on a local level. Locally, although closed sales in April were down, pending transactions are UP - indicating we will see an increase in May and June existing home sales. This is what I call 'bumping along the bottom' of the real estate market - minor positive & negative shifts in numbers, and statistics as the market continues to sort itself out.

The full text of the NAR article can be found at the NAR website: www.realtor.org, or by clicking here: April Existing-Home Sales Ease.

More information on the current state of the Decatur real estate market can be found on my blog, at www.TerryMichel.com/blog.