The new year has begun, and things are already looking promising for 2010 in our local real estate market! Last month, we looked over the market stats for the entire year 2009, which showed us that it was a tough year with home sales and prices down a pretty significant amount. Well, this year is full of opportunity, and we look forward to a year of promise and moving forward through recovery!

Note: We normally post year-to-date numbers in our market reports, but since it is January, we won’t bore you with those numbers this month. Check back next month to see those stats in February’s market report.

Already, things are looking up. As you can see in the chart above, sales have increased by nearly 18.5% from last year at this time! List prices have increased as well, but the main stat to look at as far as prices are concerned is the sales prices. The average sales price over last January have only decreased by 0.45%. A minuscule drop like that shows that home values are steady. The average days on market for homes sold decreased as well, which means homes are selling faster now than they were a year ago. More good news!

Home sales remain popular in the $100,000 – $300,000 price ranges, both for the month of January and for the previous 12 months. You’ll also notice that the average days on market increases as homes get more expensive. This makes perfect sense because as prices get higher, the number of buyers gets smaller due to having finances available for higher-priced homes.

Overall, January 2010 proved to be positive, and we look forward to seeing more good news in February!