August 22, 2007

Current listing inventory - 278 active listings in Owatonna as of today. Inventory has again dropped just a bit the past week and that continues to be an encouraging sign for home sellers. Average days on the market in Owatonna has crept up a bit again and is 142 days. The number of pending listings has risen just a bit this week to 46 houses, with an average days on the market of 106. The days on the market gap had shrunk considerably the last few weeks between the active, pending & sold properties but begun to widen considerably again. We believe that a number of correctly priced homes have come into the market over the last month or so and have received offers quickly and therefore the number of days on market for the pendings is significantly lower than the active listings. There have been 262 properties Closed properties since 01-01-07, with an average days on market time of 124 days, we are continuing to see homes get sold. Interest rates have dropped slightly to 6.25% on August 21, 2007. As we mentioned last post, even with all of the doom & gloom about real estate that is in the media almost daily, we are only down 13% in sales over the same period last year. The most noticeable change is the increase in market time, that time is up 36% over the same time period last year.