**NWA Market Statistics for December 2023**
With 2023 wrapped up, the escalation in property values seem to have stabilized. The average $/SQFT increased less than 1% from last month. Median sale price was also the same as last month and only 3.1% higher than a year ago; which is a much more realistic and reasonable rate of annual increase in property values than the double-digit increases we were seeing the past couple years.
A few indicators no significant market shifts have occurred yet: sale price to original list price is still in the very high 90’s, months of inventory held at 5 for the third month in a row, and median days to sell actually went down by 2 days.
The two large percentage changes from last month (new & expired listings) would look ominous out of context, but in perspective aren’t particularly unusual. 1) New Listings typically has a significant drop from November to December. This time there was a 26% decrease; however, compare that to the same time last year, it’s only 8 fewer new listings in Dec 2023 compared to Dec 2022. Showing the activity level is similar to years prior. 2) Expired Listings was up 72.7% from last month, but that is significantly skewed by how listing agreements are frequently written. As a natural end-date, many agents create listings with expirations set for the last day of the year; causing a large jump in this metric in December. Many of these expired listings are renewed in January, which is why we tend to see a jump in months of inventory in January before things settle down again. The 72.7% increase from November is actually significantly less than the Nov/Dec change of last year when expired listings saw a 107% increase (or almost 300 more expired listings Nov/Dec 2022 vs Nov/Dec 2023).
2023 Round Up: a couple annual totals now that we have closed the books on 2023. NWA saw 10,879 closed residential transactions in 2023; just over 1,100 less than the total number closed in 2022. Those 10K+ sales translated to $4.3 Billion in total sales volume; down just 5.1% from last year’s $4.5B in total closed dollars. Overall, the real estate market in 2023 was not quite as robust as 2022, but for all of the initial speculated down turn, 2023 did a good job holding its own.
With housing supply still short of needed demand, and with interest rate increases expected to pause or even reverse, there is a good chance 2024 will be another solid year. Reach out if you have any questions about real estate in NWA!