Throughout the month of August, the Northwest Indiana residential real estate market continued the summer’s trend of increased sales and pricing, reports Jeanne Sommer, broker/owner of CENTURY 21 Alliance Group.
The agents of the Valparaiso-based real estate agency stayed busy this summer, with increased sales.
“Each month this year, our office has closed the most sales for that month in the last 6 years,” Sommer said, “and we expect to continue to see a steady increase in activity in the local market through 2014, given moderate increases in interest rates.”
Both the Lake and Porter County markets showed indicators of a healthy market with increased home sales, decreased days on the market and a higher average sales price in the past eight months when compared to the same time period in 2012.
Through August year over year, the number of homes sold in Porter County was up 25%, while the average sales price increased 1%. Also the average amount of days a home was on the market, another key factor in the health of a market, went down 14%.
In Lake County the changes in percentages were similar. The number of homes sold in Lake County increased 24% and the average sales price increased 2% and even higher in some markets—6% in Schererville and 3% in Hobart. In addition, the average number of days to sell decreased 13% in Lake County.
All data was provided by the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors and calculated from January 1 to August 31 in 2013 and compared to January 1 to August 31 in 2012.