From the desk of Broker/Owner Bill Soffel…
The 2015 Mid Year Real Estate Market Report for not only our company, but as well as our local market and nationally: We’ve been receiving great news at the national level regarding market activity, consumer confidence, and generally good news regarding how things are going in the housing market. On a local level, we are actually up 22% in new listings as compared to last year. Nationally, the statistics show the listings have raised about 13%. In terms of closed volume, our company is up 5% this year as opposed to a national trend of about 10%. On a local level, as we compare our company’s performance to the local board, we’ve got some exciting news to share; ERA Team VP had a days on market statistic of only 118 days compared to our local market of 135. As far as list to sales price ratio, which would be the selling price of properties compared to the listing price, ERA Team VP had 94% as opposed our local board and industry average of 92%. Those two statistics really illustrate what a great job our agents are doing of properly pricing their properties relative to market value and marketing the properties to maximize exposure. Of course, we’ve got lots of great marketing and internet tools available to us through our ERA affiliation; and it’s great to see our agents are taking full advantage.
I’d like to specifically highlight two of our offices which were brand new offices at the time of our last market report, Bradford, Pennsylvania and Yorkshire, New York. Both offices are fully up and running now; transitioned into the ERA Team VP platform and agents in both of those locations are seeing really active markets, so we’re excited to report on that. In addition to the great market outlook as we look forward to the next 6 months, in large part fueled by the continuing low interest rates, is a brand new technology platform being rolled out as we speak by ERA Real Estate. The product is called Zap, it’s technology based and will serve both ERA on a national and international level as well as our company, ERA Team VP, and all of our agents with brand new websites. This is a great opportunity to showcase all of the properties that are available not only through our company but through our various MLS affiliations and will really enable our agents to stay in great contact with their customers and clients about what’s happening in the marketplace, more so, than any of our competition so we are very excited about that. Stay tuned, more exciting news to come!
ERA Team VP Real Estate serves Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania with offices located in Mayville, Chautauqua Institution, Ellicottville, Fredonia, Yorkshire, Cuba, Lakewood, and Bemus Point NY as well as Warren and Bradford PA.