Home sales way up year over year (Pittsburgh, Penn: real estate market, renting)

[BrianTH]

The article:

Spring Comes Early for Southwestern Pennsylvania Real Estate Market - MarketWatch

A comparison of February 2011 to February 2012 data for the 13-county region the West Penn Multi-List serves shows residential homes placed under agreement increased 34.34 percent (2,193 homes versus 2,946), while new listings were up 15.76 percent (2,373 homes versus 2,747)

As noted new listings were up too, but not as much as sales. All this could get interesting this year.

[alleghenyangel]

Good time to put my house on the market!

[bradjl2009]

Maybe it's another sign more people are moving in than out.

[selltheburgh]

The east end market has been hot. Lots of bidding battles and fast sales.

[BrianTH]

This does seem consistent with the in-migration story--I suspect people who have rented for a while are now looking to buy.

[algia]

Have salaries gone up too? Just curious!

I foresee another bubble if this keeps happening. A house that's not worth 200k, should not be sold for $300k. Again, that common sense. We'll keep renting if this is the case, as we see no valid reason as to why we should overpay for something that most likely needs a ton of work too.

[Scott2187]

A few places I looked at last fall in the eastern end were under agreement a few days after listing... The one I bought was on the market for about 5 days, I'm just glad my realtor had me on the automatic notify thing so I saw it and grabbed it.

Originally Posted by algia

I foresee another bubble if this keeps happening.

I think, like BrianTH has said, a lot of people who were renting are starting to buy since they see that the market in the Pittsburgh area really never took a huge hit. I was one of those people.

[BrianTH]

So far there aren't many signs of a bubble (such as home prices getting out of whack with rents). We are in fact in a long term trend of rising incomes, and just recently we likely shifted to population growth in the core area, and that is probably enough to explain what we are seeing in the housing markets.

Of course anything is possible, but I would guess we can sustain a pretty robust market for quite a while, particularly if people keep bringing more new or renovated units to the market.

[Pitt Chick]

Originally Posted by algia

I foresee another bubble if this keeps happening. A house that's not worth 200k, should not be sold for $300k. Again, that common sense. We'll keep renting if this is the case, as we see no valid reason as to why we should overpay for something that most likely needs a ton of work too.

Another bubble?

We never had the first one... no reason to think things will get out of hand now.

[h_curtis]

It is very unlikely there will be a housing bubble. Firstly, banks don't make loans like they were to promote such a thing. You actually need more than a pulse to get a loan these days. Secondly, Pittsburgh moves slow. In this case, slow wins the race. I have no fear of a housing bubble. I do feel there will be more homes on the market after the reassessment hits. There will no doubt be some that want to leave if they get hit with a triple or even a quad reassessment.