April 30, 2007

Current listing inventory - 272 active listings in Owatonna as of today. Inventory has continued to rise through the rest of last week although not at such a rapid pace. Levels had been trending downward over the last 6 months but have recently set new highs. Average days on the market in Owatonna has fallen to 120 days. As mentioned on the 16th this is probably due in part to the number of new listings on the market, new listings = many listings with low days on the market. The number of pending listings has risen a bit this week. Currently we have 47 houses pending in Owatonna with an average days on the market of 100. Just under 50% of those pendings are homes less than $150,000. What is a little puzzling currently, is that in the past we have traditionally seen those same sellers then move up to more expensive homes. However we are not seeing the same amount of activity in some of the higher price ranges. We will keep watching. Interest rates have fallen slightly, probably due to the good news on inflation and are sitting at 5.75% on April 27th.