**January 2025 Market Updates**
Expected the latest NWA residential market statistics to be boring as we’re deep in the slow winter months, but still found some interesting notes.
In general, January was slower than December but matched or out preformed January of 2024. Months of inventory rose from 4 to 6 in January, but it was still on par with January of last year.
Total sold volume was down $100M from December, but it was up $67M from January of last year. Just as the correlated numbers for total closed transactions with a 28.2% decrease from last month, but still had a 14.9% increase from the prior 12 months.
One interesting side note was to see how big a difference there was between the lowest month of sales last year at $239M in January, to more than double that in the peak month last year at $509M in June. That’s an increase of over $270M or 113%!
Looking a little more broadly at the data, you’ll see:
1) Every month for 2 years straight has seen an increase in the 12-month change for active listings. Another way to say this is January had more active listings then last January which was higher than the January before that. That’s also true for every month last year. This can be interpreted as, while seasonality of active listings is still occurring (more in summer, less in winter), the year-over-year on whole of active listings has increased. Not surprising as we’ve eased out of that fast-pace COVID market, a house stays on the market a little longer; meaning more overall active listings each month.
2) Average price per square foot has hovered in the $211 to $218 per SQFT range for the last 10 months. That’s a good sign of stability. January averaged $227/SQFT sale price. That’s an $11/SQFT increase (~5%) from last month. That was a little surprising since January tends to be a slow month giving buyers a little more leverage to negotiate down prices. We expect there will be a slight correction downward to this by the end of February.
3) If you want a simple snapshot of just how consistently prices have risen since the start of 2023, only one month in the last 2 years has not had an increase in the 12-month change in average sales price per square foot (May 2024). And only two months in the last 2 years has a decrease in the 12-month change in median sale price (April 2023 & March 2024). Both evidence that year-over-year, prices continue to increase.
That covers the key points for the latest market numbers. If you want to learn more about the market or have specific real estate questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!