October 2, 2007

Current listing inventory - 249 active listings in Owatonna as of today. Inventory dropped again over the last week and that s a great sign. We are close to the 2006 high of 243 listings in October 2006. Average days on the market in Owatonna has dropped quite a bit to 134 days. This is also a good sign as some of the long time listings dropped out of the active category. The number of pending listings has remained balanced at 41 houses. Average days on the market has dropped down slightly to 167. There have been 310 properties Closed properties since 01-01-07, with an average days on market time of 124 days. There continues to be encouraging signs this week. The active inventory has dropped again the pendings have remained stable and the closed property list continues to grow. These signs are positive for us here in Owatonna.

Last year at this same time, we had 350 homes with an average day on market time of 93 days. So 2006 compared to 2007 we are down 11.5% in sales (not as bad as much of the media would lead you to believe). The big change however, it has taken 33% longer to sell those homes in 2007 than it did in 2006.

If you are a seller in todays market you have to realistic on your price, have everything ready to go on your house, AND be patient while waiting for your home to sell. In addition there are several price ranges that have been more active in 2007 than others. You can click on the link to review the Market Absorbtion chart.

Interest Rates fell slightly to 6.125% on October 2, 2007. p>