A year like no other...seriously.
We have done our best to bring you accurate and timely market information throughout 2020. As this crazy year comes to a close, we wrap up the past data and look forward to the changes ahead. It will be extremely important to keep up with the market over the spring of 2021, as we are hoping to see a bit more balance in the real estate world. Now, let's recap December and see how things turned out.
For new listings last month, it should come as no surprise that we went a bit down from November, and landed not far off from where we were last year at this time - 2,820 to be exact, which is only a few hundred above 2019. That category alone, however, does not showcase the amount of demand still present, because as we look at months supply of inventory, we are at the lowest of the year. For the first time all year, we dropped below a one month supply. That means that if no new homes came on the market, it would only take about three weeks to literally see nothing for sale. Wow!
Days on market did see a bit of an uptick, though. This would likely be an indicator that even with the limited supply, people are still waiting for the right home for them. It's still barely over two weeks, where last year at this time was solidly over a month. Average sale price went a tad down, but still remains above the $350k threshold-- a good margin above the $280k average sale price of last year. Total units sold was up slightly, but wound up almost identical to last December, around 4,000.
Here's where things get crazy...Total homes for sale actually fell below 5,000. Just to give you an idea of how low that is, the lowest number of all of 2019 was still over 8,200 homes. And until November of this year, we hadn't seen it go below 8,200 in 2020, either. What does that mean? The bulk of sellers are staying put for now, and homes are not hitting the market. That is why it will be so interesting to look at this spring. Will balance return and more houses become available to meet the buyers demands in 2021? We'll have to wait and see.
Thanks for reading along with us, and we truly hope your year gets off to a wonderful start. Stay tuned for more monthly recaps, and as always, if you plan to make a real estate move in 2021, connect with one of our amazing professionals here at VIBE to help you navigate the path. You'll be glad you did.
