Has the Northeast Philly real estate market hit rock bottom? [Real NEastate]

I am thinking of selling my home, but I bought in 2006 at the height of the market. Have we hit the market bottom yet and if so, should we expect things to pick up in the Northeast? Will prices rise soon?

You will only be able to judge the “bottom” of a real estate market when you pass it on the way back up and can look back and say, “Oh, that must have been the bottom.”

Judging by the number of home sales per month in Northeast Philadelphia in the last four years, the slowest we’ve seen so far was in January and February 2011 when home sales came to a screeching halt. In January and February 2011, we saw the least amount of homes sold at only 120 per month in the Northeast. Since then, things have picked up, but not at a speed that we can see home prices start to settle in to a steady rise.

In 2006, the Northeast saw the highest amount of units sold in the month of June at a high 568 and the average sold price was $172,000. It will take some time to get back up to that average sold price. June’s average sale price reached an average of $155,000, so we have a ways to go.

The good new is June of 2013 has seen the most units sold since 2010 with 281 units sold. We’re on our way, but we’re not there yet, because it’s a slow crawl to recovery. We’re not even close to reaching 2010 sales numbers and just because we’re seeing homes selling a little faster, there is still a considerable amount of housing inventory available in many areas of the Northeast.

Time will tell.

Stacey McCarthy is a real estate agent with the McCarthy Group of Keller Williams. Her Real NEastate column appears every Wednesday on NEastPhilly.com. See others here. Read other NEast Philly columns here.