HometownGeorgetown.com

Let’s dig into the numbers to see what’s been happening over the past week in Georgetown. For your benefit, I pulled up the hotsheet going seven days back for the MLS areas known as GTE and GTW (Georgetown East and West, as you probably guessed). Take a look at the area encompassing Georgetown on this map from the Moreland website.

During this time, 22 properties went into Pending status, and 5 became Active Contingent. What do these terms mean? In both cases, an offer has been made or accepted, but there’s one key difference. The Austin Board of Realtors defines Active/Contingent as a listing where an offer has been accepted on the property but is contingent upon “something” else happening either on the buyer or seller’s side. The offer is frequently contingent upon the buyers being able to sell their own home. While they are trying to sell their home, the sellers of the first property continue to market their property to try to get another offer. When a property goes into Pending status, it is essentially taken off the market, although back-up offers are often accepted during this period.

Even better than this figure is the fact that 27 properties sold over the past seven days. The buyers and sellers closed the deal. The inspections are done, the financing came through, and the keys changed hands. What a great feeling! Right now, someone is unpacking boxes and dreaming about the holiday season in a new home.

There were also a number of properties on which the price changed. 58, to be exact. 55 of them are houses (excluding townhomes and manufactured homes). These homes have been active on the market everywhere from eight days on up to 253, with an average of 81 days. The average original list price is $265,848, with an average reduction of $16,184, or 5.88%. Is that a big enough reduction to convince buyers of the value of these homes? Only time will tell. Unfortunately, if a home isn’t priced right when it’s first put on the market, a buyer may be more difficult to convince. Think about it. When you see a house that has been on the market for five months or more without selling, isn’t there a part of you that wonders what is wrong with the house? In truth, there may be nothing wrong with the place other than that it was priced too high in the first place. But that taint of time can mean that, in the end, the home sells for less than it could have.