By Mike Bodeen · 10 February 2025
Listings Continue Increasing
I always enjoy hearing from our readers. It seems like there’s been a pick-up lately of folks reaching out with feedback to our Snap articles. I love that. Thank you.
Before we get too far into the month, let’s close out January’s sales numbers.
* Active Listings: 22,432 vs 15,574 last year – up 44% – and up 12.1% from 20,007 last month
* Under Contract Listings: 7,403 vs 7,423 last year – down 0.3% – but up 35% from 5,496 last month
* Monthly Sales: 4,677 vs 4,435 last year – up 5.5% – but down 16.3% from 5,585 last month
* Monthly Average Sales Price per Sq. (PSF) Ft: $314 vs $289 last year – up 8.8% – and up 3.6% from $303 last month
* Monthly Median Sales Price: $453,500 vs $430,000 last year – up 5.5% – and up 0.8% from $450,000 last month
Some numbers jumped out at me. Active listings are up just over 12% from last month. The number of listings are **great news for buyers**. But 12% is a big # – and it’s not being matched by like-demand, so inventory increases.
There’s been a good increase for homes to go under contract, but it matches typical trends at this time of year, but it beats the alternative.
Closed sales numbers rose 5.5% compared with last year but dropped 16% from January’s numbers. That’s a big drop!
“The high-end market of over $3 Million seems to be where the action is and their sales numbers are pulling up the lower price range.”
The median sales price has increased to $453,500 finally moving off the $450,000 number that we’ve had for several months. That’s a 5.5% increase. Seeing the median sales numbers are ones that we pay more particular attention to, and here’s why:
The average sales price increased almost 9% from one year ago and 3.6% from last month. These are amazing increases, but according to Michael Orr of the Cromford Report, these numbers are “deceptively good.” The high-end market of over $3 Million seems to be where the action is and their sales numbers are pulling up the lower price range.
Per Orr, there have been 142 closings of $3 Million or more in the past two months with an average PSF of $864. Compared to the same time period on year ago, there were 92 closings with an average PSF of $801. In the last two months there have been 35 closings of $6 Million or more compared to just 9 last year, with a PSF of $1,047.
Orr is saying that the smaller number of closings has an out-sized effect on the overall price PSF. It has a much smaller effect on the median, which is why for trend sakes, we pay more attention to the median numbers.
How do we explain this amazing buying frenzy on the high end? High end buyers are more often cash buyers. They also are not as affected by mortgage rates compared to their interest in the stock market, which is near a record high. Over the years, I’ve witnessed this market phenomenon that high end buyers are more glued to non-real estate numbers, but when the stock market dips downward the appetite for higher valued real estate will drop as well. In the meantime, we’ll continue to pay more attention to the median.
Market data referenced in this article comes from The Cromford Report.