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Portsmouth NH Real Estate Tide Is Rising | Don’t Miss The Boat

The first 6 months of 2011 are in the history books now so we can take a close look at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire real estate sales numbers to see how our market is doing.

First is the our average sales price for those first 6 months of 2011 compared to previous years.

Pretty obvious the average sales price has risen to what is probably an all time high of $359,827, the first time we’ve passed the former peak sales price in 2005.

Here’s what the CEO of RE/MAX International had to say about the market in general: “It’s very encouraging that both home prices and sales transactions have now risen for several months in a row,”said RE/MAX CEO Margaret Kelly. “It appears that this market is following traditional seasonal trends as it works its way through a recovery and back to more normal conditions.”

Below is the average days on market (DOM) for Portsmouth homes, DOM is the average time it takes to sell a home.

Huge drop in marketing time over last year, almost down a full month compared to 2010.

The list price to sales price ratio has fallen a bit to 93.48% of the listed price. That means if a Portsmouth home was listed for $100,000 the average sales price was $93,480 or about a 6.5% price reduction.

Sales volume also has a story to tell. So far in 2011 there are 131 closed sales in Portsmouth, that’s statistically insignificant compared to the same time period in 2010 and a big jump up from the flat market we had in 2009.  Numbers of pending sales (under contract but not closed) are declining.

So what do all those lines and numbers mean to you if you’re thinking of buying a home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire?

It seems pretty clear to me from the numbers that the Portsmouth market bottomed out in 2009 and like the ocean tide, is rising albeit somewhat slowly.

The biggest danger buyers face now is not so much catching the bottom of the market but a rise in interest rates which can not only make your new home cost more per month but could knock you out of the market entirely by making your monthly payment too high for you to qualify for. Visit mpirealestate.com for expert advice on real estate issues.

So is now a good time to buy a home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire?

The historical numbers all say it is as long as interest rates stay put. That, unfortunately is a big gamble, so don’t roll the dice with your housing future, let’s get looking right now and get both a good price on a new home and a good interest rate locked in for you and your family.

Visit New Hampshire Maine Real Estate (http://www.NewHampshireMaineRealEstate.com)  to see all the Portsmouth and Seacoast area homes for sale including southern Maine.

Ann Cummings and I welcome your real estate questions. The graphs above reflect the market in Portsmouth, NH only, I’m happy to do one for your area if you like, just shoot me an email to Jim@JimLee.com

Here’s a bonus for the techies in the audience, scan this QR code to see a beautiful new listing of ours. Click here to see all our listings for sale.

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