Another solid month for the NWA residential market!!!

Closed properties were up from November; just shy of 27M more dollars sold or 72 more closed transactions (7% gain for both metrics).

Sold residential properties have hovered around $218/SQFT for the last 6 months, a sign of stabilizing prices. Another sign of pricing stability, the median sale price has stayed around $344K for the last 3 months. In fact, this is the smallest of any 3-month change in SEVEN years (Sep to Nov 2017).

The ratio of original list price to sale price was back to 100%; which was a little bit of a surprise because typically buyers have a little more negotiating power in the winter. 2021 was the last December to have a 100% original list price to sale price ratio.

Active listings were down from last month (not surprising with the slower winter months), but this was over 350 more active listings and 180 new listings than the same time last year (9% and 23% increase, respectively). Expired listings jumped in December from November (76%), because agents often write listing agreements to run through the end of the year. This jump is not a reflection that all the sudden less buyers are out there. Also evident by the months of inventory going down from 5 to 4; meaning new buyer activity is outpacing new seller activity in the market.

From an annual stand point, 2024 was more productive than 2023. There were 736 more closed residential properties accounting for the $475M increase in total closed dollars. This is good news as we begin another real estate cycle for 2025.

NEW MARKET STATISTICS! The seasonal winter slowdown is upon us, but it’s not doom-&-gloom. Here’s what the data shows us…

Signs of the Seasonal Slowing:
-> Active listings were down almost 200 (or 4.1%) from last month
-> New listings were down 240 (or 17.1%) from last month
-> Total sales for November 2024 was down 170 closed transactions or almost $75M from last month (15.7% and 17.4%, respectively)

Signs the Changes are Not Market Shifts:
-> Both metrics for total sales (dollars & count) are up from November of 2023. That is, the market is outperforming last year.
-> Expired listings were down 200 (or 14%) from last month. If there was a sign of overall market slowing, this metric should be picking up. Said another way, a market slowdown would see more listings not finding buyers and thus, an increase in expired listings
-> The ratio of original list price to sold price is still in the 99% range. Most sellers are not having to make large concessions to sell their property.
-> Median days to sell went down by 5 days from last month. Meaning, in general, residential properties sold faster in November than October; and sold slightly faster than the same time last year (by 2 days).

Given all of the latest data, it’s fair to say, NWA is reasonably were we should be for a healthy market in November. If you want to know more about the current residential market (or commercial), reach out!

📣 📣 A HALF-BILLION DOLLAR MONTH!!! 📣 📣

That’s right! NWA residential sales in August surpassed $500M. Impressive!! That represented a 13% increase from last month’s total residential sales dollars.

Median sold price for a property hit the $350K mark; a threshold we have only met 1 other month in NWA history (June 2024). The average price per square foot remained the same as last month. The ratio of sales price to original list price is still 100%; meaning there are still more houses selling over original list-price than properties selling below the original list-price. All three of these metrics being up indicate sellers are still in firm control of the market.

On the note of price per square foot… Since January of 2022 to August 2024, the average $$/SQFT has gone from $182/SQFT to $220/SQFT. That’s a 20.8% increase. Another way of looking at this is the median SQFT of a sold residential house in NWA has hovered around 1,800 SQFT for the last 4 year; meaning it takes $32,400 more to buy that same 1,800 house today versus January 2022. Or yet another way of looking at it, if you were the owner of an 1,800 SQFT house in January 2022, you’ve gained about $32K in equity for doing nothing. That’s market appreciation.

Months of inventory (MOI) interpreted as the number of months it would take to sell all active listings based on the current rate of buyers closing on houses and if no new listing enter the market. MOI has held a 4 for the fifth consecutive month; an indication that current buying-rates are keeping pace with new-listing rates. As a rule of thumb, many real estate professionals consider a MOI of 12 to be an indication the market has transitioned from a sellers-market to a buyers-market. A MOI of 4 for August 2024 is yet another indicator we are in a robust sellers-market.

New listings and active listings (both 1-month and 12-month changes) saw typical fluctuations; however, expired listings was up 24.4% from last August. That is the largest percent change between consecutive Augusts for expired listings in the last 10+ years. In fact, all other expired listing from one August to the next August have had less than a 10% change (up or down) in the last 10 years. We don’t have data to confirm my suspicions, but we wonder if the changes from the National Association of Realtors Settlement, which took effect in mid-August, had some impact on this…it’s just a point to ponder.

That sums up another productive month of residential sales in NWA. If you have any questions about the market or need any real estate related advice, reach out!

July was another healthy month for residential real estate in NWA.

July was down slightly from June for many statistics. Both total sales dollars and total number of closed transactions were down 5% and 2.2% respectively. Although compared to a year ago, July was significantly more productive with double digit percent increases over July 2023.

There are still strong indicators of an active residential real estate market. Active and New listings were both up from last month, while expired listings were down in that same time period. The median days on market dropped by 6 days from June. Months of Inventory stayed steady at 4. Similarly, the original list price to sales price ratio held for another month at 100%.

As we settle into the back half of the years, it’s reasonable to anticipate the market slow in volume with typical market seasonality.

📣 NEW RECORD for NWA!! 📣

June’s residential total sales dollars of $489M is the highest single-month total in NWA history!! This was $27M more than last month’s sales, and $9M more than the previous record month (June 2023).

As we hit the official halfway mark on 2024, the increase activity seen through the spring months has started to slow. Active Listings dropped by 200+, or a 5.3% drop, after 5 consecutive months of increases. Similarly, New Listings had a 16.1% reduction from May; just shy of 250 fewer active listings than last month. Still, the fact that there was no change in Months of Inventory for the 4th month in a row, indicates the changes in seller-activity is being fairly well matched with changes in buyer-activity.

Home prices seem to remain stable. The median sale price for a home in NWA went down $6K, while the average price per square foot increased marginally by 1.8%. Speaking of consistency, the median days to sell, while up 5 from last month, is right in the middle of our average for the last 12 months; where we have hovered around 63 days on market.

One final point… To truly appreciate and emphasize how much the NWA residential market has changed (grown) in just the last decade, and even more so in just the last 5 years, here are a few more statistics:

➡️ In the last 10 years, NWA has gone from double-digit-million-dollar sales months…(February of 2014 was the last at $82M), to multi-hundred-million-dollar sales months.
➡️ NWA had it’s first $300M+ month in history in May 2019 ($314M); just 5 years ago.
➡️ The first $400M+ residential sales month was June of 2021 ($439M); only 3 years ago.
➡️ The month of June has set a new record high in total sale each of the last 4 years ($439M in 2021, $470M in 2022, $479M in 2023, and $489M in 2024). At that rate, there’s a fair chance NWA sees its first $500M+ month in June of next year. Anyone want to make a wager on it?? 😅

**May Market Statistics for NWA**

By all indications, the market is still doing well. Months of inventory (MOI), the ratio of original list price to sale price, and average sales price per square foot all saw very little or no change. A sign of a steady market. The number of new and active listing increased slightly from last month showing more sellers are entering the market, but MOI remaining the same shows buyers are keeping pace with new activity on the market.

Total sales, both by dollars and by count, were down slightly from last year, but up from last month. The discrepancy between 1-month change percent increases between dollar volume and number closed is telling of the increase in final sales prices compared to the prior month. Speaking of....

Median sale price has hovered around $335K for much of the last 10 months, so to see the almost $30K jump from last month was surprising. In fact, $367,500 is the HIGHEST single-month median sales price in NWA history. This may be the peaks for median sales price of 2024, because each year the peak typically occurs in May or June (7 of last 10 years; the COVID years of 2020 and 2021 were the anomaly when the prices just kept rising all year long).

Over the last 10 years, the median sales price has increase over $200K ($154K in 2014 to $267K in 2024). Or another was to interpret it, at that rate of change for each additional year, the median sales price has increased $22K. If that trend continues, 5 years from now the median sales price would be another $100K higher ($469K) and in just 7 years, the median sales price would be over a half million!! This is one time we hope the trend slows to keep NWA still an affordable place to live.

That sums up the interested updates to the NWA residential market. If you have real estate market questions, reach out anytime!

⭐️ NWA Market Statistic for April 2024 ⭐️

April was a solid month for residential real estate sales in NWA, but surprisingly there’s not a whole lot to say about it.

Every metric was up or had no change from March except median days on market which saw an 8-day decrease (a good thing).

April was the first month in 2024 to cross the $400M mark in total sales dollars; almost $50M more than last month. This jump was from the almost 100 additional closed transaction in April vs March.

The fact that median sale price, average price per square foot, and ratio of sale price to original list price all saw less then a 1% change from last month shows values are steady.

For the 2nd month in a row, months of inventory (MOI) held steady at 4...a sign sellers are still in control of the market.

Those are the key takeaways from the April statistics. May tends to be one of the best months for sellers, so I anticipate even better numbers next month.