Once we get past the Super Bowl, home buyers will be out in force, resuming their hunt for a new home and hungry for a deal.
Boy, are they going to be surprised.
Not only is the active inventory as tight as ever, the new listings are dribbling out, compared to previous years. Here are the number of new listings that hit the MLS between Jan. 1-9, and their average LP/sf:
| Jan 1-9 | New Listings | Average LP/sf |
| 2009 | ||
| 2010 | ||
| 2011 | ||
| 2012 | ||
| 2013 |
There were 15% fewer listings this year, compared to 2012.
But look at the average list prices – the $569/sf is 42% higher than the 4Q12 average sales-price-per-sf ($400/sf). The average list price is similar to 3-4 years ago, back when sellers thought they deserved higher prices due to the homebuyer tax credit.
This is how the Big Standoff begins.
Historically the first quarter hasn’t been a time for big price increases, but admittedly, this is the new abnormal so it’s possible that buyers are willing to step it up. Here is the track record of the average $/sf of NSDCC detached-homes sold in the fourth quarter, compared to the following first quarter of the next year:
| 4Q:1Q | Avg 4Q $/sf | Avg 1Q $/sf |
| 2008 | ||
| 2009 | ||
| 2010 | ||
| 2011 | ||
| 2012 |
The first quarter usually comes out a little sluggish on pricing – each of the last four years has seen a lower 1Q average than the previous fourth quarter. We could break that streak, but by how much? $410/sf? $425/sf? Look how that compares with the average list prices!
With so many sellers shooting for the moon, the few who price their home realistically will be getting more attention than ever. We will be hearing more crazy bidding-war stories, and it will be because there are so few sellers who are listing for reasonable prices.
it’s not the end of the world. It just means that we can expect 2013 to be like 2012, where the first half of the year saw relatively slower sales due to buyer patience, and an active second half of the year once sellers get more realistic.
The inventory numbers will stay low by historical standards, but the unsold listings should start growing over the next couple of months. Let’s start tracking them – today there are 649 active (unsold) listings of detached-homes in NSDCC. Their average LP is $722/sf – so at least this year’s new listings are under that!
P.S. We won our first bidding war of 2013!
Here is the new blog look!
It’s meant to be cleaner, more mobile friendly, and a little more sales pitch to use JtR’s services.
Comment/suggestions welcome!
Looks great. Very clean. Nice professional new bio pic too.
Thanks Game Agent! I appreciate you and others who have stuck around through all the changes here – thank you!
The design looks really nice! Suggestion is to put more full posts on the main page, right now there is only one post shown, where before there were a bunch. I think most people probably don’t check daily so it’s nice to be able to catch up on a bunch of posts at once.
Thanks, that is in the works – and we’re going to take out the separate videos in the middle too.
The primary focus was to get it more mobile-compatible, which I think it is much improved on the phones we tested (HTC Thunderbolt and iphone5). If there are phones that are having trouble, I’d like to hear about it.
Digging the new look.
I check the site at least twice a day, but I think Jacob makes a good point about having more posts visible. Often times I won’t have time to comment on a particular post until later in the day and sometimes there will be multiple posts for the day.
But don’t take that as an endorsement to slow the postings down. Quite the contrary, actually.
Headers are too fat. It is about 4″ from the top to your photo and about 6″ to the first useful content. If it were my site, I’d scrunch those top headers and menu down to about an inch on a “normal” HD-res. monitor.
WHOA, viva la difference! Going to take some getting used to. Appreciate the mobile compatibility, though.