Aaron Robbins

Whether you are a homeowner or are waiting for the right time to buy, staying on top of the local real estate market is key to making the best decisions possible. Click here to subscribe to my newsletter and never miss an update on our local market!

Median Sales Price

I use the median closed price for homes to show the growth in value that properties in our areas have experienced. Medians work best because they are not skewed by anomalies like averages are, and I used closed price rather than list price to provide true market values, rather than what the seller might hope their home will sell for!

Real Estate is an appreciating asset so it is not surprising to see the values rise overtime, but these recent years of high demand have skewed appreciation up past what it has usually been prior. Even with high interest rates turning away many buyers, the lack of inventory has kept demand growing, and thus, prices as well. In January, our median sales price was $264,950. That’s up $3,150 from last month, and $35,000 from a year ago. Home sweet home can be quite the investment!

Closed Price to Original Price Ratio

This graph is a great indicator of demand in our market. It shows us what percentage of the original asking price (before any reductions) houses are selling for. If a house sells for the exact asking price, it will have a ratio of 100.0%.

Last month, we had a 97.3% ratio, which is just .3% higher than it was in December. While 97.3% is still historically great, these past three months have actually been the lowest since January 2020. Of course, over that time span, the record low interest rates were adding fuel to the fire. With higher interest rates and therefor less demand on the buyers side, it’s important for sellers to have realistic expectations when selecting a price for their home.

Median Days to Sell

Days to sell really means days to go under contract, aka days until the seller has accepted a written offer to purchase for the property. Like the last graph, this helps us measure supply vs demand. I am again using median rather than average so that the outliers don’t skew our numbers.

In the past, 30+ days on market was perfectly normal. Since demand picked up several years ago, we have been spoiled with record fast sales. They have been slowing down ever so slightly, and in January, the median days to sell was 17. In October it was 13, in August it was 7, and in June it was 5. January was actually the longest it has taken houses to sell since March of 2020, when the median days to sell was also 17.

Number of New Listings

This graph represents the number of properties listed for sale over the past 3 years. This statistic helps us identify what the number of new inventory is, since supply levels directly affect demand and prices.

As you can see from the patterns in the graph, it is not uncommon for people to hold off on selling this time of the year. It looks like we are starting the regular season increase because last month we had 304 new listings, which is 76 more than we had last month. As inventory increases, it is possible that this year, for the first time in several years, we will have enough supply to satisfy the buyer demand. This is why we have seen days on market increase, and it is possible prices will finally start dropping- or at least stop climbing.

Number of Transactions

Here we see a visualization of the number of homes that made it through the listing process and ended up being sold to a buyer ready to call it home.

Just like the last graph, we can see some obvious seasonal trends here. Last month we sold 228 properties, 102 less than what we sold in January of 2022. Sales have been steadily dropping, but could start increasing again as buyers and sellers begin to accept the new normal of interest rates, and once again start looking to move again in the Spring.

Months of Inventory

This final graph tracks an equation that we use to measure the relationship between inventory and demand in the market. This statistic essentially says “If we get zero new listings for sale until every house currently listed has sold, at the current rate houses are selling, it would take x months before we run out of inventory.”

In January, we had 4 months of inventory, which is on par with what we have been seeing since mid 2020, but still creeping up. At our current rate, this number is likely to increase- If inventory levels do continue to increase, like they usually do this time of year, and prices remain high and thus transactions don’t catch up, we will likely see an increase in Months of Inventory. However with Spring around the corner, it’s difficult to predict how our market will react amongst the higher rates than we had in Springs of the past couple of years.