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Philly real estate market: A good time to buy, a hard time to sell

A new report by brokerage firm Owners.com lists Philadelphia as the third-best buyers' market in the nation.

Home buyers have the advantage right now in Philadelphia, according to the latest report from owners.com
Home buyers have the advantage right now in Philadelphia, according to the latest report from owners.comRead moreDAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO

If you're tired of paying increasing rents, the good news is that it's a buyer's market in Philadelphia. The bad news, of course, is that if you're trying to sell a home, it might take awhile. A new report by brokerage firm Owners.com lists Philadelphia as the third-best buyers' market in the nation.

To determine the list, researchers identified areas where home buyers could expect to find "more affordable options with less competition." The buyer's markets in the top 10 — New York, Chicago and Boston among them — had an average listing price of $297,794. The report says that is $35,330 below the national average. In the end, homes in those markets  sold for an average of $16,375 less than their listing prices, researchers found. The homes tended to be active for two weeks longer than properties elsewhere.

On the other end of the spectrum, the report examined the seller's markets. Those properties tended to sell around $544,100 — more than $200,000 above the national average. And, researchers found, those homes sold for just less than $200 below listing price. Markets where sellers stand to gain the most include all the usual West Coast spots, as well as a few in Texas.

Finally, number-crunchers also identified markets they called "overheated." They include locations where residents are spending more than 33 percent of their household income toward their mortgages. Almost all of them are in California, but Oregon and Hawaii squeak in there, too.