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April Market Stats and Data

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April was yet another month with some seemingly conflicting data. The median price ticked up, the days on median days on market dropped significantly, yet inventory grew. It would seem that if homes were selling faster and for more money, there would be fewer homes available, but that wasn’t the case. So why exactly is that? At least one of the reasons is that some data is considered a lagging indicator and some is considered a leading indicator. Let’s go through the numbers and explain this a bit more.

Median Home Price

The median home price for single family, non-acreage properties in Bend ticked up slightly from Feb to March and closed the month at $690,000. This is about 4% higher than the low in December, but still about 10% lower than the median from one year ago. As we have indicated in prior reports, it is typical for prices to fluctuate and reach highs in the spring and early summer and then taper throughout the year. In general, we see drops from 5-10% in a normal year, and so we were on the upper end of that this past year, but certainly within the range of what would be expected. Given the run-up over the last couple of years, it is unsurprising that we would be on the upper end of the normal cyclical patterns. Some headlines had called for much worse, but that simply didn’t pan out. As we have indicated in the past, without an abundance of homes for sale, prices are likely to remain strong despite a changing interest rate environment. One other thing to note is that the decline year over year was even less when looking at average prices. The average is about 5% lower than it was at this time last year. This would indicate that although there are a large number of sales taking place on the lower end of the market, there have been a decent number of higher-priced homes changing hands as well and thus keeping the overall average strong.

Pending Sales and New Listings

Last month we pointed out that there were more Pending home sales than there were new listings and that about 40% of the homes were pending within a week. Both of these data points are leading indicators giving people insight into the current conditions and what the sale numbers will look like moving forward. The actual sales, which take place about 30-45 days after an offer is accepted, would be considered a lagging indicator since it is reporting information and activity that took place a while ago. It is more of a confirmation than an indication of anything to come. If we look at pending sales this month, we can see that there are now 334 pending sales in Bend, and 42% of them were pending within a week. This shows continued strength in buyer demand. 

However, last month we saw 57% more new listings come on the market than the month prior. We would expect the number of new listings to increase month over month this time of year, but when compared to the same months last year and two years ago, we saw 22% and 34%, so a 57% jump is significant. In prior market updates, we had discussed the “shadow inventory” that consisted of homes that were pulled in the slower fall market with plans for a spring relaunch.  This certainly seems to have happened and the question now is how many more are to come. Although we don’t know for sure, history would indicate that the next two months will see added inventory come to the market with it capping around June/July.

Days on Market

This is a lagging indicator and is showing us the information from sales that went into contract 30-45 days ago. Looking back at the data, we saw the number of homes going Pending in a week jump from 25-40%, so it really should be no surprise that when those homes closed over the last month, the days on market dropped significantly. It confirmed what we had previously seen with the pending sale activity, but didn’t give us any insight on what to expect on a continued basis. For that, we need to look at the current pending activity as discussed above, and from this we can expect that the days on market will continue to remain low. Also after digging in a little further, we discovered that about 32% of the listings were pending in less than 4 days, so it appears that this number could drop yet again. Time will tell, but again, the leading indicators of pending sales and time on market before an accepted offer, help us predict the more lagging indicators of Days on Market for closed properties.

Average Sale to List Price

Knowing the leading indicators of pending sales and the rate at which they went pending last month, it should come as no surprise that the average sale to list price went up last month and is now at about 99%. The median sale to list percentage is actually back at 100% so this should tell us that although some people are able to negotiate some discounts on overpriced listings, the midpoint and most of the sales are taking place right around list price. This is an example of buyer demand remaining strong, but also seller pricing continuing to become more accurate. Sellers are aware the dynamics are changing and that interest rate fluctuations can cause ripples in sales and so are not taking as many chances by pricing their properties at aspirational levels. Price changes held steady in March and remained right around 100 for the month, and off from highs of 300 in late summer 2022.

Some other points to consider…

Mortgage Changes: These have bounced around a bit, but remain fairly consistent and have less of an impact on buyer activity. Here is the latest chart of current interest rates.

National Price Projections: These remain steady with experts estimating a flat year or two with appreciation picking up and heading back to normal levels of 3-5% in 2025-2027.

Buyer Demographics: We include this in some of our semi-annual State of the Market Reports (click here to see past editions), but thought we would provide an update on who is buying this year so far. 

We hope you find this information valuable and that it helps you towards your ultimate real estate goals. If you have any questions about this month’s content or would like to dive a little deeper on the data, please reach out to your Ladd Group broker. If you don’t have one, you can reach me at steve@bendpropertysource.com or on my cell at 541-280-2132. 

There are also several ways to reach the team, so please let us know how we can help. 

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