Anyone who has tried to sell their existing home already knows this (so many of those moving up to a Heartland have sold their existing home in less than two weeks!) – but the housing market is really doing well. Don’t take our word for it though. Sam Spatter of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote the following:
Home sales in the five-county Pittsburgh region jumped 14.7 percent in February compared with a year ago, rising above 1,300 during the month for the first time in three years.
There were 1,311 new and existing homes sold last month compared with 1,143 a year ago, according to RealSTATs, a South Side-based real estate information company. This year, February had one more selling day because of leap year. “We expect an increase in all sales this year,” said George Hackett, president of Coldwell Banker Real Estate Services in Pittsburgh. He is optimistic that the local and national housing market will experience a robust year. And Pittsburgh will continue to see sales and prices outpace other areas of the nation, Hackett said.
All five counties had double-digit increases, with Allegheny County leading with 762 homes sold compared with 691 a year ago. Westmoreland County had sales of 199 homes versus 160 a year ago, followed by Washington County with 131 compared with 108. Beaver County had 111 sales against 92, and Butler County had 108 compared with 92, the report stated. Sales of existing homes alone were up 15.9 percent, with 1,219 compared with 1,052 a year ago. New homes sales totaled 92 in February, up one from last year.
You can read the full article on PittsburghLive.com
The National Association of Home Builders released its first NAHB/First American Improving Markets Index, a new economic index revealing metropolitan areas that have shown improvement for at least six months in three key economic areas – housing permits, employment and housing prices.
With home prices expected to fall in nearly every city in America, CNNMoney.com reported some promising news for local homeowners. Pittsburgh is one of only a handful of housing markets expected to see a rise in home values through 2012. It is forecasted that Pittsburgh homeowner’s could see a gain as high as 5% through September of 2012. 
Earlier this week
2010 was a year full of accolades for the city of 
Two Thousand and Ten has been a great year for us at Heartland Homes. Despite the media reporting a national housing crisis, saying that house prices have tanked, new home starts are down, and many more negative reports about our industry. We are happy to report that these national reports did not represent the local real estate industry!
