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‘Pent-up demand’ fuels local housing surge |
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Wednesday, July 29 2009 |
Low interest rates, tax breaks combine to boost local home sales
By TJ HEMLINGER
Staff Writer
While the housing market may have stagnated or even fallen back in other parts of northeastern Indiana, here in Whitley County sales have nearly doubled as buyers move to take advantage of low prices, tax breaks and interest rates nearly at the bottom of a cycle.
“There’s been some pent-up demand because people who wanted to buy had been putting it off,” real estate agent Scott Darley of Coldwell Banker Roth Wehrly Graber Realtors said. “They decided to go ahead because prices are way, way down but interest rates are starting to creep up.”
Real estate agents sold 37 homes in Whitley County in June, a 95 percent jump from June 2008.
First-time homebuyers can get an $8,000 tax credit if they own their home by Nov. 30. They have to have taken possession and closed on the house by then.
Darley said some agents have sold homes to people who have already received their tax credit by amending their 2008 income tax filings.
Greg Fahl of Orizon Real Estate said, “It seems odd that Whitley County is up that much, but it has been a stable market. We are getting toward the end of the cycle, and buyers are understanding that interest rates are really good and prices are really good.”
Darley said the expanding interest in homes has cut across a wide swath of types of homes, including rural, farm and lake.
“More modest homes are moving well,” he said.
“There’s never been a better time to buy,” Darley said. “Prices are the lowest they’ve been in years and years and years. Now is the time to move. There are people who need to sell for a variety of reasons. People who want to move up may not be able to sell their old house for what they want, but they’ll be able to get a new house for less than they expected.”
Fahl said, “People are selling low and buying low. Probably land sales held up the best, and homes with some acreage. Lake property always holds up, and probably town lots suffered the most.”
He added, “I’ve been through this before, and two or three years down the road people are going to say, ‘What was I thinking? I could have bought that home cheaply.’”
While Whitley County saw a surge in home sales in June, most other counties surrounding it saw decreases. Noble County fell off 30 percent, Kosciusko was down 25 percent, and Allen County was off 3.4 percent. Wabash County stayed the same, and Huntington County sales increased 9.5 percent.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, July 30 2009 )
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