March 2024 Market Update
Hi, Chase Ames with the Ames Team Realty. Thank you for checking out our real estate market update for the month of March 2024. Let’s check out the sales report for the Washington County Multiple Listing Service for the month of February to see what sold, what came on, and what moved in the real estate market in February.
Homes Sold
For sold listings, there were 283 in February compared to 309 in February of last year. That’s an 8% decrease, but overall the market is up.
Homes Pended
For pending listings, which are homes that have now gone under contract with offers, there were 479 last month compared to 415 in February last year. That’s a 15% increase. Sold listings is a lag measure, whereas pending listings is a lead measure. This is because listings have to pend first before they can close. Even though sales are down, new pendings are up, which means the market overall is up.
Parade of Homes
The Parade of Homes has come and gone. As far as we understand, it was a record year for the best turnout ever and there is a lot of property moving right now. For active listings, our inventory really went up this month because of the parade of homes. Over the two weeks of the parade there are actually about twice as many homes that came up for sale as there were that actually went under contract with offers. The sellers every year stating let’s wait until the parade before listing our home, you might want to do it just beforehand. Each year it’s pretty normal that there’s twice as many homes that come up for sale during that time as there are that actually get accepted offers and come off market.
Homes on the Market
For active listings, we’re at 1,580 active listings on the Washington County Multiple Listing Service. That is up about 3% compared to this time last year when there were 1,535.
Homes Listed for Sale
For new listings there are 741 new listings that came on market in February. Compared to 675 this time last year, that’s about a 10% increase.
Average / Median Sales Price
Average sales price is saying about $589,000, but that’s not really the average sales price or the average value of a home in Washington County. There are so many million dollar and multi-million dollar sales happening right now, and there’s so few of $100, $150, $200,000 type homes selling, so it’s skewed quite high to show that the average is high. What’s really important is the median. The median sales price last month was $485,000 compared to $469,000 the same month last year. That’s about a $16,000 increase and that’s pretty appropriate. We are seeing prices start to come up just a little bit and we’re really going to expect those prices to continue to come up or really jump up even more, given that the Fed is expecting or has announced that they’ll be reducing rates three or four times this year. If rates come down, prices will go up. Be aware of that and get excited.
The market is really strong and we’re happy to answer any questions you might have in regards to real estate. Please call the Ames Team at 435-674-6011 or simply respond to this email. Thank you!