Pittsburgh Homes Burgh Blog

Sluggish housing sales are sending Pennsylvania real estate markets right into the national recession, despite having markets that never got caught up in out of control appreciation.

Home sales are weakening in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh after two quarters of slower growth. The national credit problem is making it harder for home buyers to get mortgages, not that there are that many buyers in the market. Lenders in most of Pa no longer offer mortgages that require little money down, and those that are offering them most people don’t want to get.

Lenders are requiring more for down payments as fall out of the credit crunch mounts. A major reason Pennsylvania housing markets went up at all during the national real estate boom was with first time buyers and 100% financing.

In Philadelphia, where many financial and insurance businesses have their headquarters the market has slowed, and prices are beginning to fall. Philadelphia has never been a boom to bust real estate market, but the hint of hope home owners had for a boom ended.

Pittsburgh has a growing foreclosure problem developing and home values in many neighborhoods in an around Pittsburgh are starting to show major price devaluation as a result. The national real estate recession has hit Pittsburgh with  force.

The market will have a difficult time adjusting to the change for a number of years, and is forecast to suffer considerably as a result, according to the Housing forecast. Home sales will be off through 2008 and 2009  average home values will deflate 5.8%.

In Erie there’s no doubt about it that it’s a buyers market. New home permits are down and the force of the national real estate recession has set up housing keeping.

Erie is a small less urban place on Lake Erie in upstate Pennsylvania, but like most of the state’s economy Erie is still dealing with fall out from the steel boom and auto business slow downs. There isn’t much steel manufacturing left in Pennsylvania. Erie will see a weaker housing market in 2008, but since prices didn’t get out of hand during the boom Erie will only see deflation of 2.3% for the year.

The real estate market in Lancaster is quite a different story. Home prices increased over the long haul of lower interest rates and will now see and adjustment period that should last well through 2008, depreciating an average of 4.1% for the year.

However, with all of this Gloom and Doom, it remains a great time to buy a home for the first time as rates and selection have never been better.  Additionally, it is a good time if you are looking to sell a less expensive home and upsize to a more expensive home.  In this way, the current economic valuation of homes on the market will work in your favor.  This is not a good time at all to think about downsizing.

The www.SearchPittsburghHomes.com Team at Keller Williams Pittsburgh Real Estate can help with all of your residential home buying and selling needs in Pittsburgh.  Visit us on the web today to check out all of our custom home search mls tools and many other Pittsburgh home buyer / seller resources.