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Existing Home Sales Increase Locally

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Dec 23, 2009 9:45 pm US/Eastern

Existing Home Sales Increase Locally

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― After dismal sales last year, the local real estate market has caught fire, capping an upward trend with a 40 percent increase in sales in November.

"Almost from March, April on, continued increases in momentum into the housing market just not in western Pennsylvania but throughout the country," Hoddy Hanna of Howard Hanna Real Estate said.

The pickup in sales here reflects a big jump last month across the nation brought on by a combination of record low interest rates and a first-time homebuyer tax credit of $8,000.

Young married couples and other first-time buyers have been snatching up homes in the $200,000 and under price range, making it a good time to buy and an increasingly good time to sell.

"If you have a house to sell certainly in the Pittsburgh area, western Pennsylvania, under $300,000, you probably are in the catbird's seat to sell right now because the demand is so great," Hanna said.

But what's been absent from this market has been the so-called "move up" buyer – people who sell their old house for a bigger, more expensive one.

Right now, most of the activity has involved those first-time buyers and those sales could cool if interest rates go up or when the tax credit expires in April.

"How long things will stay up only time will tell," Dan Murrer, of RealSTATS, said.

And that will largely depend on the economy in general and jobs in particular.

"Employment," Hanna said. "The more that rebounds both on a national basis and a local basis, that benefits everybody."

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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