January 20, 2009
Good morning from Cedar Falls
There may be bleak housing news throughout the rest of the country, but in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area there was only a slight decline in the average sale price and the total number of sales of detached single family homes as reported thru the Waterloo- Cedar Falls Board of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service.
As many of you know, I have been tracking these statistics since I opened my office in 1979, and I continue to be impressed with the strength and diversity of our local economy. Like many of you, I vividly remember the difficult days of the early 1980's, when it was not unusual to have 350 homes for sale in Cedar Falls and over 1,000 in Waterloo. By comparison, on Friday the 16th of January there were 145 homes for sale in Cedar Falls, and 442 in Waterloo. The sales figures for Cedar Falls showed a small decline of 15 homes, 463 in 2008, down from 478 in 2007 for 3.14%.
The average sale price fell 1.50% from $195,080.04 in 2007 to $192,153.84 in 2008. In Waterloo, the average sale price fell 5.17% from $105,359.16 in 2007 to $99,910.51 in 2008. The total number of sales in Waterloo fell only 4.28%, from 887 in 2007 to 849 in 2008.
There continues to be a very strong demand for homes under $100,000 in Waterloo, with 482 of the 849 sales in that range. The strongest demand in Cedar Falls was in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, with 248 sales out of the total of 463. The two strongest buying motivations in Cedar Falls still seem to be the school system and the lower property tax rate. For the 2008/2009 tax year the rate in Cedar Falls is $35.29591 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, versus $43.32425 in Waterloo. That's a difference of 22.75%.
The Black Hawk County Abstract Company has once again done a great job of tracking statistics for 2008. According to their information the number of foreclosures increased only slightly in Black Hawk County. There were 453 in 2008 versus 413 in 2007. On the other hand, building permits for single family units in Cedar Falls were down 28.79% in 2008. There were 117 single family homes and 24 condos for a total of 141. In 2007, there were 198 single family units built in Cedar Falls.
For 2009 I am forecasting a drop in sales in both Waterloo and Cedar Falls of 4% to 9%. Average sale price will remain steady to possibly a 3% decline.
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Many thanks to Chris Reiter for her year long efforts in compiling this data.
Best Wishes,
Dick Robert CRB, CRS, GRI
....
WWW.CEDARFALLSREALESTATECO.COM.....
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