By Krystal Slaten, Times-Mail
krystal@tmnews.com
The important thing to remember when buying or selling a home locally is that Lawrence County can't be compared to the national housing market, which is experiencing a slump as the sale of new homes dropped to a 13-year low as the Fed attempts to battle the credit crunch with interest rate decreases.
In the Bedford market, things are different say local Realtors, who are bucking the national media's portrayal of the doom and gloom in the housing market.
"I think we've been quite pleased since the first of the year with increased activity due to a positive response to the interest rate decreases," said Barbara Wright, the broker/owner of RE/MAX Real Estate Center. "Bedford is a little different than other areas. This isn't the East or West coast. We didn't see a huge inflation in housing prices only to have the bubble burst with the market drops."
The market isn't discouraging local brokers.
"We're actually kind of busy right now," said Susan Wykoff, managing broker for Carpenter Realtors in Bedford. "It's a lot better than it was a few months ago, so we're seeing the activity pick up, and some of that is seasonal. Locally, the housing market is pretty stable. It is a little slow, but it's still stable."
Based on the Bedford Board of Realtors data, the local market dipped 8.7 percent from 2006 to 2007. The average price of a home dropped 2 percent in that time period. Already, since the first of the year, 90 sales have been reported.
Last year, the average price of a home in the Bedford market was $88,139, according to information from the Bedford Board of Realtors.
"We really haven't seen the prices of homes drop significantly," Wright said. "What we're seeing is that people are becoming more realistic about the value of their home."