The Canton market is still slow, but it could be worse

Activity in Canton is a whole lot slower than what we've seen for the last 15 or so years.

There are currently about 590 homes active on the market in what we refer to as the first-time buyer (up to about $250K) and move-up buyer (up to about $550K).

The bad news is that in all of last year 646 homes sold in those markets. So there is almost 11 months of inventory.

The luxury market is even more difficult. There are about 33 homes on the market in Canton above $550,000. But in all of last year only about 7 homes in that price range sold. That means about 4 years of inventory.

A rought time to sell a luxury home in Canton, but a good time to be buying.

Just make sure you are working with a real buyer's agent!

New Canton home or used Canton home?

One of the surprising things in the Canton real estate market is that so many homes are so new. Since we work in the Plymouth/Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti/Belleville areas a lot of what we show to home buyers is a lot older than what is available in Canton.

I haven't done a study, but based on a bunch of property searches over the last 10 years I would guess that about 95% of Canton homes are less than 35 years old. Contrast that to Ann Arbor where the number is about 60%.

In any case here is a link to a short article on another one of our office blogs on new vs older homes.

Lawyer/real estate broker gets busted out East

Here is a fun one:

A lawyer, real estate agent and politician has been convicted of forging real estate documents to give the appearance that he had a piece of property under a listing agreement when he actually did not.

The guy has already has lost his real estate license and his ability to practice law has been suspended for six months. The state is now moving to permanently disbar him.

(Interesting that they kick him out of real estate but he still has his lawyer license.)
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He apparently admitted forging a landowner’s name to a listing agreement and taking steps to sell the property.

The landowner, however, decided to use a different agent. Whoops!