September Market Update
Not much changed last month, but we are starting to get a clearer picture of what we need from the market conditions. Mortgage rates continue to be a hurdle for most buyers and are keeping home owners locked into their current position. This is the main reason for the slow market, however, the falling temperatures are also a factor. Coming into the holiday season, we are all patiently waiting for some relief.
We saw quite a bit of continued “leveling out” this last month when it comes to home values. The median sales price for single family homes in Reno/Sparks in September came in at $567,500. This is a 1.3% drop from August, but a 7% increase from where we were a year ago. I’d like to see more of this leveling over the next 6 months or so.
Our active inventory is rising slightly month over month, but still WAY down from last year at this time. We have 2.3 months supply of inventory, meaning that if we continued to sell homes at the same rate and didn’t get any new listings, we would be out of inventory in only 2.3 months. With only 372 homes sold last month (down 13% from last month and 20% from last year), we are definitely seeing the cyclical/seasonal slowdown for our area.
The fact of the matter is that we need to lower interest rates to pick back up. It doesn’t sound like this will happen anytime in the near future, so buyers are having trouble finding something in their reach. To get prices to drop, we need more listings. However, most homeowners are stuck in their position and don’t want to lose their sub 5% interest rate. Understandable. This is keeping our new listings statistic under 500 homes/month.
Buyers:
If you’re thinking about buying, it’s more important than ever to talk with a mortgage professional before shopping for a home. You need to know what your monthly payment is going to look like and be comfortable with that before falling in love with a property. We are still able to get seller credits to buy down your rate, but I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to pull this off for our buyers. If you find something perfect and you can get the seller credit to get your monthly payment where you want it, pull the trigger.
Sellers:
Again, pricing your home is the most important part of listing your house. It’s more important than ever to know the comps in your neighborhood. Watch closely and reach out to us for more data. We have no problem getting you an up to date CMA that will be more accurate than the Zestimate you’re looking at on Zillow. We are seeing homes that are priced correctly fly off the market while homes that are priced even $10,000 high are sitting for extended periods of time then selling for under what they could have got if they had listed correctly.