Looking to buy a house in Wayne? Here’s a tip – don’t wait too long.
The housing market is definitely a seller’s market right now, as a low level of inventory is keeping area real estate agents busier than usual for this time of year.
Area real estate agents like Trisha Peters from First Realty are finding themselves a little busier than normal during the first half of 2016 as more people are looking to move to Wayne and take advantage of what the growing community has to offer.
“The residential and acreage market has been very active, even from last year,” Peters said. “It’s been a unique market. Usually, we’ll see a lull around Christmas and then it picks up in the spring, but our heaviest marketing time came in January and February this year. It was pretty hectic around then.”
Usually, the summer and early fall is a busy time for local real estate agents as sellers work on their homes to get them ready for sale. An average of a little more than 70 homes have been sold in Wayne since 2008, and with the average price of a home up almost $20,000 from where it was eight years ago, it’s definitely a seller’s market right now in the Wayne area, Peters said.
“What points us in that direction is that we don’t have a lot of listings right now for people coming into town to buy,” she said. “Houses are commanding top dollar and selling fairly quickly when they do come on the market, and right now sellers are getting favorable purchase agreements.”
Peters said the average time from when a home goes on the market until it is sold is about four months, which is less than half the usual time for a house in Wayne.
“Two years ago, the time was about nine months, so we’ve really cut our time down,” she said. “It’s been a good market for people who are looking to sell their houses and get into new ones.”
With the major construction project at Bowen Hall on the campus of Wayne State College potentially displacing a number of students for the upcoming school year, one would think there would be a run on sales by parents of college kids who are looking to help their kids find suitable housing during the dorm reconstruction project at the college. Peters said, however, that it hasn’t been as active as she thought it might.
“We’ve had a few calls, but not as many as we’ve had in previous years,” she said. “We’d probably sell 5-10 percent of our homes to people who are looking for investments and buying homes for their kids who are going to Wayne State, but right now we just don’t have the inventory available. It’s been a unique market.”
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