The seasonal trends continue with days on market creeping up and prices creeping lower. However, the key word here is “creeping”, as things are not moving as quickly as buyers would like. The sentiment from many buyers is that there should be a correction and an opportunity to buy at a discount, but with such low inventory, this just doesn’t seem to be the case. At many price points, there are still multiple offers, with homes closing above the asking price. In other price points, and with the homes priced unrealistically, we are seeing listings sit longer with price adjustments needed. Let’s look at the data to get a sense of what has been happening and, more importantly, gain some insight into where things are headed.
Median Home Price
According to MLS data, the median home price continues to hang close to the highs from earlier in the year and was $655,000 in October. This places us 18% higher than where we were last October and 17% higher than where we were in January. It is important to remember that there were times earlier in the year the median price was up 40%, or more, from the same point last year. Seeing this number work its way back down is healthy. We would love to see this continue to normalize and head to lower single digit returns over the next 12-month period.
New Listings
As we head into winter, we continue to see a decline in the number of new listings coming to the market. In October, there were 171 new listings, which was a 33% drop from September and 28% lower than what we had in October 2020. However, it is important to note that 2020 was an anomaly, and we were actually quite close to what we saw in 2019 and even higher than what we saw in 2018 (163). Again, this seems to be a return to normal levels, however, with demand still strong (see the next section), the lack of new inventory is concerning and will continue to place upward pressure on prices.
Number of Homes Sold (and Inventory)
The number of homes sold in October also remained consistent with recent non-COVID years, showing 226 homes sold for the month. We have included a chart of the monthly trends for sold activity for the past few years. Visually, you can see that this year actually has a very similar shape and trend pattern to previous years, with the exception of 2020. However, what is not clear on this chart is that although the number of sales is consistent over this period, the number of homes available for sale is drastically lower than it was in years past. In 2018, when 239 homes sold, there were 869 houses available for sale (roughly four months of inventory). In October 2021, 226 homes were sold with 326 available for sale (a little over one month of inventory).
November Market Update
The seasonal trends continue with days on market creeping up and prices creeping lower. However, the key word here is “creeping”, as things are not moving as quickly as buyers would like. The sentiment from many buyers is that there should be a correction and an opportunity to buy at a discount, but with such low inventory, this just doesn’t seem to be the case. At many price points, there are still multiple offers, with homes closing above the asking price. In other price points, and with the homes priced unrealistically, we are seeing listings sit longer with price adjustments needed. Let’s look at the data to get a sense of what has been happening and, more importantly, gain some insight into where things are headed.
Median Home Price
According to MLS data, the median home price continues to hang close to the highs from earlier in the year and was $655,000 in October. This places us 18% higher than where we were last October and 17% higher than where we were in January. It is important to remember that there were times earlier in the year the median price was up 40%, or more, from the same point last year. Seeing this number work its way back down is healthy. We would love to see this continue to normalize and head to lower single digit returns over the next 12-month period.
New Listings
As we head into winter, we continue to see a decline in the number of new listings coming to the market. In October, there were 171 new listings, which was a 33% drop from September and 28% lower than what we had in October 2020. However, it is important to note that 2020 was an anomaly, and we were actually quite close to what we saw in 2019 and even higher than what we saw in 2018 (163). Again, this seems to be a return to normal levels, however, with demand still strong (see the next section), the lack of new inventory is concerning and will continue to place upward pressure on prices.
Number of Homes Sold (and Inventory)
The number of homes sold in October also remained consistent with recent non-COVID years, showing 226 homes sold for the month. We have included a chart of the monthly trends for sold activity for the past few years. Visually, you can see that this year actually has a very similar shape and trend pattern to previous years, with the exception of 2020. However, what is not clear on this chart is that although the number of sales is consistent over this period, the number of homes available for sale is drastically lower than it was in years past. In 2018, when 239 homes sold, there were 869 houses available for sale (roughly four months of inventory). In October 2021, 226 homes were sold with 326 available for sale (a little over one month of inventory).
Days on Market (DOM)
Last month, we discussed some differences between average and median values and noted what the differences mean. This month the two values inched closer together again, with the median value ticking up to nine days on market, and the average ticking down to 20 days. Although it is a small move, it indicates two things. First, even though sales are still happening in a week or so, they are taking slightly longer to go pending. Second, as the average approaches the median, it would show that some homes with a relatively large number of days have been selling.