Andrea Crossman-Ortman Holland Real Estate

Real estate home sales statistics along the West Michigan Shoreline communities South of Grand Haven to Holland and Saugatuck for the first 3 months of 2008 compared to 2009.
In 2008 there were 161 homes sold with an average sale price of $216,848, compared to 2009 when there were 138 homes sold with an average of $155,186, representing a 14% drop in volume, and a 29% drop in average price. Average days on the market in 2008 for this reporting area was 157, and sellers got an average of 94.85% of their listing price, and 90% of their ORIGINAL listing price, meaning the price it originally went on the market; in 2009 those numbers were 133 days on the market, with sellers getting 90.05% of list price, and 81% of ORIGINAL list price. Average price per square foot for these 161 West Michigan homes was $125.61 in 2008, and $94.97 in 2009. In 2008 the high, low, and median prices were high-$2,950,000, low-$28,000, and median-$129,300; 2009's West Michigan real estate sales numbers were, high-$2,250,000, low-$17,000, and the median-$87,500.

Broken down by month, the sale look like this:


January 2008-54 / 2009-28
February 2008-52 / 2009-50
March 2008-55 / 2009-60

Looks pretty bad out there, but if you look at the most recent month, things seem to be picking up ever so slightly.

I was recently at a golf outing this past weekend up in the Big Rapids area and was able to have some good conversations with a couple of my friends, Bob and Pat, about the state of the Michigan, specifically Holland, real estate market. The conversation started off when I brought up the sale price of a home that we passed along our way through Zeeland. Pat was amazed at the fact that it sold for as much as it did, saying that he thought that the home would have sold for about 30% lower than it actually did. This statement was immediatley agreed upon by Bob, who said that he was thinking about just walking away from his home because of the recent reports of how bad the market is out there; worried that his home would be worth 10's of thousands less than he paid for it. Walk away?!! Really?!! don't you need a place to live? Pat didn't necessarily think that walking away was the answer, but maybe asking the bank to do a loan modification might work. OK, here's what's strange. Nothing has changed in either one of these guy's incomes, or is even looking like it's going to change. So why all of the fear? Well, what we have is, like the swine flu, a pandemic of sorts. Many people are infected with the notion that we are all going to lose our jobs and end up in the bread lines. You know what's going to cause that? walking away from houses, and thinking that no matter what, every home is worth 50% of it's original value.