The Good, the Bad and the Arlington (MA) Sales review

With the hour glass fairly tinkling the last sands of 2009 away, we can report that there were 141 single family homes sold in Arlington in the year (a few more may pop in). Average price was $495,000. This sets out at about 9 grand below asking (call it 2%. This compares out quite well to 2008 where the average price was $483,000 (12k less than '09) for the 115 homes that changed hands. Prices were UP and unit count was UP -- a lot up on the unit count; 22% up on the count, in fact

To the casual observer, it may not seem like there was ssoooooo much action. Casual observers judge action by signs -- how any signs are up and how many come down. I do look at this with a small calculation that I call "signs days". It is a bench mark that takes the number of sales in the year and multiplies it by the days the sign was up from beginning to listing until the day the home went sold. For 2008 those 115 sales took an average of 60 days to sell -- that works out to (115*60) 6900 sign days. For 2009, the 141 sales averaged on market for a speedy minimal 48 days or 6758 sign days. The Casual "looker" did not see any difference in the signs posted on the by-ways of Arlington, hence, a splendid home market has not been made public -- except to we few proud and happy Realtors marching through Arlington.