The Market starts to heat up.

With the better weather, we always get more traffic on the weekends through Open Houses. This is true again this year. But something is much different from the past 4 years. Not only is traffic up, but pending sales are up 26% in Southwest Portland. Closing are up 17%. Listings are down 13%.

What has made this happen. Well for one thing, the underwater sellers are now off the market. If you cannot bring the necessary funds to escrow, you cannot sell your home at this time.

The increase in sales is coming from many factors, but the big one is the low interest rates. Secondly, the low prices are very attractive. It does take a little confidence to purchase after all of the events over the last 4 years, but we still have 120 Million Americans who have a job. I don’t really care what the unemployment rate is at any time. Unemployed people have never been our target market.

Enjoy the sunshine, and the brand new market. Both are very welcome at the DeCosta Family.

John DeCosta, Sunday 4-15-2012