MSN today posted an article about a Forbes.com article that lists the Top Ten Suburbs to Sell a Home right now. To make the determination of which cities were the top, they took data from Altos Research. They took suburbs in the country’s 75 largest Census-defined metro areas based on the last 90 days of sales activity, then narrowed it to those cities with an inventory of at least 75 homes on the market.
They then eliminated suburbs where it currently takes more than 125 days to sell the average home and eliminated any suburb where year-over-year price declines were steeper than 10% or where more than 50% of sellers had reduced their asking price to sell their home.
Cities that make the cut include;
10. Montclair, N.J.
Location: 13 miles west of New York City
9. Waltham, Mass.
Location: 26 miles west of Boston
8. Encinitas, Calif.
Location: 28 miles north of San Diego
7. Matthews, N.C.
Location: 12 miles southeast of Charlotte
6. Midvale, Utah
Location: 13 miles south of Salt Lake City
5. Sugar Land, Texas
Location: 20 miles southwest of Houston
4. Kennesaw, Ga.
Location: 28 miles northwest of Atlanta
3. Venice, Calif.
Location: 16 miles west of Los Angeles
2. Bedford, Texas
Location: 22 miles west of Dallas
1. Berkeley, Calif.
Location: 14 miles northeast of San Francisco
The article says what was left wasn’t a set of awe-inspiring hidden gems where sellers are awash in bidding wars. Nationwide, low-interest rates and low prices caused existing home sales to rise 5.5% in September, but in many areas of the country, sellers are finding relatively few buyers. But, “If you have to sell a house, sell in these places,” says Michael Simonsen, chief executive of Altos Research.