The number of NSDCC first-half sales are 15% higher than the 2017-2019 average number of sales, and
THE MEDIAN SALES PRICE IS +32% YoY:
NSDCC Sales, Jan 1 to June 30
| Year | ||||
| 2017 | ||||
| 2018 | ||||
| 2019 | ||||
| 2020 | ||||
| 2021 |
In 2009, there were 756 NSDCC sales for the entire year, and only 76 of those were over $2,000,000.
In 2021, we’ve had 737 sales over $2,000,000 in the first six months!
Random thoughts:
Having 130 NSDCC homes in June sell for $100,000+ over list price should be an all-time record. If we had half that many, it would be astonishing!
But those were decisions made in April and May.
It feels like the market is in the deceleration stage, where fewer homes are worthy of a bidding war. Sellers and agents who insist on adding an extra 5% to 10% to their list price will need to be selling an exceptional property AND present it perfectly to generate offers.
The inferior homes/locations (the ones who really benefited during the peak frenzy) will be the ones that feel it the most. The gap between the dogs and the creampuffs will widen.
Listing agents who “have comps”, and around $5, can get a cup of coffee.
Open houses will help with the transparency. Buyers and lookers will be able to experience the upgrades in person, and get a better read on the traffic. The art of determining the difference between lookers and buyers will be renewed.
There will be eye-popping sales.
We will find peace with these higher prices. We would have gotten here eventually – it just happened faster than we ever thought possible.
Higher interest rates won’t have a big impact – there’s too much cash in play to soften the blow. One thing you can count on – sellers won’t care about higher rates. They aren’t in a hurry, they don’t have to sell, and they aren’t going to give it away!
If prices were to come down, it would be slowly and over time. There will be occasional deals that give hope to lower pricing, but then a couple of high sales will happen right behind them.
The ibuyers might be the only candidates who could influence the market in a panic, but they could rent their homes for a while if they had to. They are big corporate entities who are used to losing money, so no real pressure. The old accounting rules REQUIRED banks to sell their properties quickly, but those days are long gone.
More potential sellers will give up the thought of moving, and the number of homes for sale could stay restricted – or even go lower. The hope of there being a post-covid surge of sellers will wane.
If there were an occasional surge of new listings, they would all be priced based on recent sales…..or priced higher. If buyers don’t like today’s prices, having more inventory priced the same won’t help.
The statistics will bounce around more as we pull into Plateau City.
All of the above (except #1) should remind you of how it used to be!
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We’re still waiting for that flood of inventory!
NSDCC May Listings and Sales
| Year | ||||||
| 2017 | ||||||
| 2018 | ||||||
| 2019 | ||||||
| 2020 | ||||||
| 2021 |
Last month’s sales didn’t set a record, but they were very strong given the shortage of inventory which was about 25% under the usual number of May listings.
Check the YoY price increases for May:
Median Sales Price: +43%
Average $$/sf: +36%
Median $$/sf: +34%
No matter how you measure it, pricing is through the roof!
Hey Jim – did you say home prices went up 9% in one month?
No, the NSDCC median sales price went up 9%, and there’s a difference.
Here’s a look at the mix of homes between La Jolla and Carlsbad that sold in their respective months:
| Month, Year | |||||
| May, 2019 | |||||
| May, 2020 | |||||
| April, 2021 | |||||
| May, 2021 |
More of the larger homes are selling.
The NSDCC Median Sales Price in May increased 9% over April, but the median size went up 5% too.
It’s probably too simple to calculate 9% – 5% = 4% but the local annual appreciation has been at least 30% lately so a month-over-month increase of 3% to 4% in the hottest months of the year seems reasonable.
Though the May sales will be down 10%, the number of sales over $3,000,000 went up 11% in one month!
The NSDCC inventory has been a perfect match for the heightened demand of 2021. With roughly 20% fewer homes for sale, the scarcity has energized buyers to grab anything that’s close to being a good match – while the pickier buyers wait patiently.
This month’s detached-home sales will likely set another new record, and set the stage for the summer market when California should be at 100%. Will that means more sellers will feel safe enough to put their home on the market? If so, it should really juice the frenzy further and cause sales to soar.
The demand appears steady – price-wise, if sellers can stay in their shoes, it should be a crazy summer too!
We had 347 sales last month. Could we hit 400 sales in May? It’s possible!
Yesterday we saw that more than half of the NSDCC houses sold over the last couple of months have closed for a price that’s higher than their list price.
Another difference from previous years is the efficiency.
Typically, there are only around 55% to 60% of the listings that actually sell each year – mostly due to agents re-freshing their listings repeatedly, sellers changing their mind, and wrong pricing.
What a huge difference in the Covid Era.
We have fewer homes for sale, but more of them are selling:
NSDCC Listings Between December 1st and January 31st
| Year | |||
| 2020 | |||
| 2021 |
Before Covid was declared, we had come into 2020 with low rates and renewed optimism, and the market was active as participants were finding their way, price-wise. There were 48% of the early listings that found a buyer before Covid kicked in on March 12th.
This year, the higher-end market is healthy, but the Under-$2,000,000 is blistering hot:
NSDCC Listings Under $2,000,000 Between December 1st and January 31st
| Year | |||
| 2020 | |||
| 2021 |
When you are telling your grandkids about THE GREATEST REAL ESTATE FRENZY OF ALL-TIME, come back to this page!
It is unusual to have so few active listings for sale. Yet, we are having more sales than ever, with the quality homes all selling in the first week – leaving very few active listings.
Casual observers don’t find any decent homes just lying around, making it difficult to stay engaged. You gotta really want to buy a house these days, which should help keep the demand in check – it’s just for serious players only.
But there are plenty of those, and we should hit October levels of sales in each of the next few months:
Here’s the first quarter breakdown so you can see how your area compares with others:
| Town or Area | |||||
| Cardiff | |||||
| NW Carlsbad | |||||
| SE Carlsbad | |||||
| NE Carlsbad | |||||
| SW Carlsbad | |||||
| Carmel Valley | |||||
| Del Mar | |||||
| Encinitas | |||||
| La Jolla | |||||
| RSF | |||||
| Solana Beach | |||||
| NSDCC |
In yesterday’s 1Q history, there wasn’t any year that got down to a ratio of 2:1 new-listings-to-sales.
All of these except Del Mar are much stronger than 2:1!
The number of active listings is bleak, if you are a buyer, and glorious if you are a seller!
If we do get our regular seasonal increase in inventory over the next two months, it should goose sales even higher. The buyers who have been in the hunt but haven’t won a bidding war yet are highly motivated to get it done!
While it feels like the inventory-less frenzy, there have been enough houses coming to market to set a new record for the number of 1Q sales:
NSDCC Sales, First Quarter
| Year | ||||
| 2012 | ||||
| 2013 | ||||
| 2014 | ||||
| 2015 | ||||
| 2016 | ||||
| 2017 | ||||
| 2018 | ||||
| 2019 | ||||
| 2020 | ||||
| 2021 |
The MEDIAN SALES PRICE HAS GONE UP 27% during the covid era!
Did you get concerned about the pending index falling another 10% last week?
The U.S. housing market is suffering from its lowest supply in history, and that is taking an increasingly hard toll on sales.
Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts on existing homes, fell a wider-than-expected 10.6% in February compared with January, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 0.5% lower year over year.
“The demand for a home purchase is widespread, multiple offers are prevalent, and days-on-market are swift,” said the Realtor’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun. “But contracts are not clicking due to record-low inventory.”
The pendings between La Jolla and Carlsbad are doing just fine. In spite of the total number of NSDCC homes for sale being fewer than usual, people are still buying at a torrid pace:
Our market was helped by having more homes for sale.
New NSDCC Listings in the First Quarter:
2019: 1,278
2020: 922
2021: 1,081
After the first two months of this year, the total number of NSDCC new listings was 26% behind 2019.
But we had a big March, and the number of new listings in 1Q21 is only 15% behind those in 2019.
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Are you looking for an experienced agent to help you buy or sell a home?
Contact Jim the Realtor!
CA DRE #01527365, CA DRE #00873197
