(Source: Rex L. Troute The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa (MCT) — Houses are selling fast in southeast Iowa, but inventory is below normal at the heart of real estate season.

“We are down a good 100 (houses),” said Dee Dee Glancy, president of the Burlington Board of Realtors. “I don’t know if people aren’t moving around or what.”

As of Wednesday, the Burlington/West Burlington market had 158 houses listed for sale. The total listed in Des Moines, Lee, Henry and Louisa counties was 257.

Glancy, a co-owner of the Re/Max Real Estate Specialists office in West Burlington, said a typical spring would have 350-plus houses listed for the four-county area.

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“We need more houses on the market,” Glancy said.

Despite the low inventory, southeast Iowa is ahead of last year’s pace in sales figures in terms of dollars. The region sold $99,545,664 worth of homes in 2011.

What may be helping sales along is home prices in Iowa have increased in value by 8.2 percent, according to the Iowa Association of Realtors’ housing trends report. The median sale price of a home in the state has gone from $115,000 in 2011 to $124,375 in 2012. Glancy said the median price in southeast Iowa would fall in the $70,000 to $90,000 range.

One positive trend in southeast Iowa has been sales of high-end homes.

“We really had an influx of $300,000 homes,” Glancy said.

Such high-end homes have sold within a week or two of being put on the market. Glancy said, incoming doctors, engineers at Case New Holland and other professional people have scooped up the higher-priced homes in a hurry.

“There has been a lot of people from out of town,” Glancy said.

About 50 percent of home sales involve people moving within the city limits, upgrading from one house to another. Glancy said, included in this movement are people selling their homes and buying condominiums.

Spring kicks off prime real estate season as people with children like to sell a house when the school year is out and move into a new home before the fall term starts.

The cold months, December through February, are typically slow sales months because of holidays and the weather.

“We had a good year because of a mild winter,” Glancy said.

Unlike past recessions in the U.S., Iowa’s real estate market did not get as hurt by the Great Recession of 2008.

“We were a little bit hurt, but not like California or Florida,” Glancy said.

The East and West coasts got hit hard with foreclosures beginning in 2007. Glancy said, about 5 percent of the houses on the market in southeast Iowa are from foreclosures, which is the norm.

What is helping real estate move is the low mortgage rates, which are under 4 percent for most lenders.

An influx of jobs at Case New Holland has brought new people to town and helped sell some houses. The possibility of Egyptian-company Orascom Construction Industries erecting an Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant in Green Bay Bottoms could create a real estate spurt in southeast Iowa.

“We need houses to rent,” Glancy said. “Anybody that has a rental will be filled in a minute.”

The influx of construction workers for the proposed $1.3 billion project could overwhelm the four-county area’s rental market. The 165 jobs to be created by an Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant could spur the sale of more homes.

On the state level, Iowa has seen an 18.2 percent increase in sales compared to the same quarter in 2011.

The spring real estate season in southeast Iowa is off to a good start in 2012. Realtors only can hope for a larger number of homes to be put on the market.

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©2012 The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa)

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Source: Rex L. Troute The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa (MCT)