Dear Claire: What’s Your Market Action Update for June 2020?

Navigating the Current Real Estate Market: Insights from the Multiple Listing Service

The Multiple Listing Service, which all Realtors® or most Realtors are members of, has a data subscription service that gives us all the data about the current market and what’s going on. We recently got the information that was published for May because it’s mid-June so we’re always a month behind and the May numbers are very interesting. A lot of buyers that I’m talking to are wondering if the market is terrible.  

I could assume the market is terrible because we are in the middle of a pandemic and then actually see the market is not terrible and that there are some interesting reasons why. Right now, we are comparing it to last year. So, looking at the first five months of this year compared to the first five months of last year, we have 15% fewer sellers in the market and as you can imagine, that’s affecting buyers not in a positive way, but in a negative way because there’s less availability on the market. 

There’s more competition for existing properties on the market. Our days on the Market have dropped as well, which is now 38 days on the market. From the seller’s perspective, what that means is if I listed my property today, it would take me 38 days to get a buyer that I’m interested in accepting an offer. Of course, these are all averages.  

In addition to a drop in new listings, we have a drop in pending sales. There are almost 9% fewer pending sales this time of year compared to last year at the same time. Additionally, we’ve dropped 7% as far as the closed sales. With all those drops, you would think it would translate into an actual drop in prices, but it has not.  

If you imagine the market the volume was up here, we were doing more transactions, had this many closings, and then we just dropped, so we have fewer listings. We have fewer pending properties. We have fewer closed properties. Prices are still increasing. So right now, compared to last year, our average sales price is up 2.8% and that translates from an average sales price of $452,000 to $465,000. Not significant, but still ticking upwards. What does all this mean? Since interest rates are so good, it’s still a great time to buy a property. Although there’s more competition than you might expect and it’s a little bit harder to find a property that you want.  

From a seller’s perspective, if you’re willing to brave COVID-19 and still have buyers walking through your property, it is still a great time to sell. Of course, we are taking all the typical precautions. On a listing, we are going to tell buyers that they must show up with a mask, they have to wash their hands when they come in, and they can’t touch anything. This translates to the reason why there are so many less listings in the market.  

Of course, I’m always here for you, and I’m always here to answer any questions you might have about real estate or in general. Remember to subscribe to our Paris Group Realty, LLC YouTube channel for easy access to all kinds of additional information. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Take care. 

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