Home sales down, but locally not so bad

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Mark Andrews hopes the right buyer comes along for his family's Grand Rapids Township home.

"I'm hoping to find a family with a 10-year-old girl who can't live without my treehouse," he told 24 Hour News 8 on Tuesday.

The plan is to buy a "fixer-upper" house sitting on more land, Andrews said.

"Without the market being the way it is, I don't think we'd be able to afford it," he said.

But while he hopes for a deal as a buyer, he knows as a seller the market cuts both ways.

"That's kind of understood in this market," Andrews said. "We kind of priced it that way. I just assume that people are going to offer me less than the listing."

Existing home sales for July are down nearly 30 percent from June, according to the National Association of Realtors. And although that trend carries over to West Michigan, experts said, things locally aren't as bad.

The good news, according to the Grand Rapids Association of Realtors, is that total home sales are only about a half-percent lower this year than they were at the same time in 2009.

If the numbers are broken down month to month, they change dramatically -- sales are around 34 percent lower this July than they were last year.

But, real estate agents said, in 2010 it's important to examine the big picture.

"We saw a (good) number of sales in that January through April time that perhaps robbed that May through August of some of its sales, to take advantage of the tax credit," said Julie Rietberg, the CEO of GRAR.

Local real estate agents said they will have a better idea of how the West Michigan market is doing once the current state is a little further from the homebuyer tax credit. The trends look pretty promising, experts told 24 Hour News 8. Home prices are up the past eight consecutive months.

"We're not quite ready yet for sellers to think the market has come completely back yet, and it's a sellers market," Rietberg said. "We need inventory to come down just a little bit more yet, and prices to rise just a little bit yet, before we get back to what we consider an even market or a sellers market."

Andrews plans to keep trying to sell his house until spring, hoping the right buyer comes along.

But if not?

"It is what it is," he said.