In recent webinars, newsletters or conversations, you may have heard us mention that the market is shifting. Some people hear this as “correcting”, but a better expression would actually be that it is normalizing. We have been seeing certain homes sitting on the market longer while others are still selling immediately and at a premium. Buyer patience has been increasing for a number of months for various reasons, and although super short days on market and near record high median prices make people believe the market is white-hot, there are some subtleties to the data that are worth exploring. Let’s break down some of the key metrics we track, and discuss what some of these changes could mean moving forward.
Median Home Price
According to the local appraisal report, the median home price dropped slightly and now sits at $770,000. Although there was a flattening in the median price, the average price actually ticked up by about 5%. Part of this is due to the fact that in April there were 50% more homes sold above $2,000,000 than in March. We like to track both the average and the median to get insights into what segment of the market is most active. In April, it was clearly the upper end of the market, but as you know, one month doesn’t make a trend. We will certainly keep track to see if either end of the market is seeing significantly more activity and if so, what this could mean to the broader market in the future.


New Listings
The seasonally expected rise in new listings continued in April. As we have discussed before, we would expect this number to increase until about June and then this normally drops as we head into the main part of summer. In February and March, we saw about 10-15% more new listings in 2022 than for the same month in 2021, however April 2022 had nearly the same number of new listings as April 2021. As of the writing of this article, there were virtually the same number of new listings as there were last year in May. It will be interesting to see if the last half of the month sees more inventory coming to market.

Pending Sales
While new listings have been increasing, the number of pending homes actually dipped this past month. Seasonally, this is not something we would expect to see and is one of the data points that is leading many experts to predict lower home sales throughout the rest of the year. There are a few reasons for this, and one of the biggest factors is that interest rates have increased dramatically since the start of the year. The table below was discussed in our latest webinar, but is worth pointing out again here. It shows what has happened to prices and sales the last time we saw interest rate jumps of this magnitude.

Days on Market (DOM)
The median days on market has remained constant again and still sits at 4 days. The average days on market has shrunk this month and is now sitting at 12. The reason for this is that in March there were a couple homes with more than 600 days on market, and one that was on the market for 2000 days that sold that month. This pulled the average much higher. Also, in April we saw about 25% fewer homes sell with more than 100 days on market. This is not to say that there are fewer homes sitting for extended periods of time, it is just showing that fewer of them sold last month. At the time of this writing, there were 37 homes that have been on the market for longer than 100 days, and so far in May, there have only been 2 that have sold! We have been seeing people shying away from overpriced homes or properties that need a lot of work, and this data point supports that observation.
Average Sale to List Price
With more homes coming to the market and the monthly inventory level for non-acreage single family housing increasing from .6 months to 1 month, it would lead one to believe that buyers would have some more negotiating power and that the average list to sale price would be decreasing. The fact is, it is not. Both the average and median list to sale price has increased in the past month and is not sitting somewhere between 102-103% of asking price. What this says is that although some homes are not selling as well, others are in very high demand. It could also be an indication that sellers have begun pricing their homes more reasonably and buyers are responding.

Some other points to consider…
Mortgage Changes: The following graphic displays what we have seen with mortgage rates over the first few months of the year. Experts have indicated that the may continue to rise, but that the pace will be greatly reduced.

National Projections: We have been watching the national projections for appreciation in 2022 and currently see the average across a number of experts at 9%. This is clearly lower than it was in 2021 and the expectation is that it will continue to taper into 2023, 2024 and beyond.

Price Changes: People have been noticing an increasing number of price changes in the market. For perspective, there were almost twice as many price changes in April 2022 (115) as there were in April 2021 (63). However, keep in mind that the high for last year was in August with 223 price changes. We will have to wait and see if we get there this year. If sellers continue to readjust their expectations and price their homes more reasonably, we may not.
Watch our most recent in-depth review of the housing market and local and national trends affecting real estate in 2022, with Brian Ladd and Erin Martin.https://www.youtube.com/embed/IawYRN0nJzs?feature=oembed
We hope you find this information valuable and that it helps you towards your ultimate real estate goals. There are several ways to reach us, so please let us know how we can help.
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