2015 Parkland Real Estate Report Card

2015 proved to be another solid year for home sales in the Parkland School District. Sales were up by 8.4% over last year with 758 sales completed. Even more impressive are the number of pending transactions, meaning homes that are under contract but have not yet closed. Pending sales are up 11.3% and this is a great indicator that the market will remain healthy into the first quarter. These solid numbers were typical throughout the Lehigh Valley, with our neighbors in the East Penn School District up 8.7% in 2015, Northern Lehigh +10.9% and Northwestern Lehigh was up an amazing 25.7% from a year ago!

See homes for sale in the Parkland School District

All of this sales activity should be good for home values and we’re starting to see some very small increases in sale prices. At the beginning of the year we predicted a 1-2% price increase for 2015 and that ended up being right on the money with prices up 1.4% over a year ago. The prediction for 2016 is that price increases could be in the 3-4% range as long as interest rates don’t increase too rapidly over the next 12 months. We currently have a shortage of homes for sale throughout the Lehigh Valley, with current inventory levels down 30.2% from year end 2014. In the Parkland School District there are currently only 214 homes for sale, a decrease of 46.4% from a year ago! If sales are up and available inventory is down that means better prices for home sellers in 2016.

How much is your Parkland Home worth?

A word on the recent Fed rate hike: just because the Federal Reserve raises it’s key interest rate, don’t assume mortgage rates will increase. This interest rate is the amount the fed charges banks to borrow money. Mortgage interest rates are determined by bond rates or the amount the buyers of bonds expect to get for lending investors money which they in turn lend to home buyers. The fed increase will eventually influence the bond market, but for now the small fed increase of 0.25% hasn‘t been felt in the mortgage industry.

This is one of The 11 Things You Need to Know Before Buying a Home in 2016, a class we’ll be offering Thursday, January 28th. Get more information by clicking the link above.

All data from the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors MLS