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Human Hair Thickness vs. Bellingham Land Sales
A few weeks ago we looked at Whatcom County real estate absorption rates — or how quickly the existing inventory in any given area was selling. The slowest-moving area in the County at the time was Mt. Baker/Deming, which had a pending ratio of 13.5% and an absorption rate of nearly 33 months.
Well, those numbers are downright STELLAR next to another category of local real estate: Bellingham lot and land sales! I did a quick study today on the NWMLS for lots and land priced under $200,000. The numbers were downright shocking:
- 186 Active listings.
- 2 Pending sales. (That’s “two”).
That equates to a pending ratio of, NO, not 13.5% like bottom-of-the-list single family residential in Mt. Baker/Deming, but rather, this number: 0.0106382979.
Yes… “0.0106382979″ is the pending ratio of Bellingham lot and land sales as of today. Now, let’s put that number up against the thickness of a human hair in inches, which is, according to Wikipedia, if it’a thick hair, about 0.00708662125 inches.
And we have a winner!!!
Bellingham lot and land sales’ pending ratio CRUSHES the thickness of human hair by a margin of 0.0035516779.
OK… it’s disturbing to talk about Bellingham real estate in terms of miniscule decimal-point numbers. But the truth is that it is very, VERY difficult to sell land right now, for a host of reasons:
- Everybody and their brother who owns some land is trying to sell it right now, so the inventory is f-l-o-o-d-e-d.
- Buying land means tying up large sums of cash, and in this economy cash is king. Or at least a return on your cash is king. And land by itself doesn’t usually give a great (or any) return… not until you build something on it.
- If you do tie up a large sum of cash on the land, you don’t want to have it tied up very long, so you build and re-fi the new structure. Only problem is, there’s very, VERY little money for construction right now. If it’s not going to be owner-occupied, I think it’s fair to say there is NO money for construction right now. (If you know differently, by all means share it!!!)
- Why buy land and build when residential money is hovering around 5%, is readily available for as little as 0% down, and there are hundreds and hundreds of already-built homes to choose from?
On the other hand…
There are some land sellers out there willing to finance the purchase of their lot — no banks involved. And there are banks that own lots that are willing to offer INCREDIBLE financing options on those particular lots, and perhaps a construction loan to go along with it. If you’re curious about either of those, or if you want to compare other categories of Whatcom County real estate to the thickness of things… just let me know.
