Are There Enough Homes For Our Buyers?

So, What is Happening in the Flagstaff Market?

It is early in the New Year to talk about any trends, especially when trying to get a gauge on home pricing, but we can talk about the Housing Inventory.
All last year, we talked about the lack of available homes to purchase, the experts in the Real Estate field felt that trend will continue through 2020.

But how is Flagstaff doing? Overall we had more homes sales in January, then came to the market. Thus depleting our Inventory Level lower than they already were. For the month of January we had 31% more homes come to the market, or 126 homes, compared to 96 the year before. Total number of home sales started off extremely strong in January, up 79% with 93 homes closing compared to 52 the year before.

Broken down;
Single Family homes
                   -8% decrease in the numbers coming to the market or 69 this year, compared
                    to 75 last year.
                    121% more home sales, 64 this year, compared to 29 last year.

Condominiums
                    114% increase in homes coming to the market, 10 this year, 
                    compared to 3 last year. 
                    43% more home sales, 10 this year, compared to 7 last year.
Townhomes
                    220% increase in homes coming to the market, 32 this year,
                    compared to 10 last year. 
                    67% more home sales, 15 this year, compared to 9 last year.

Manufactured Homes
                   150% increase in homes coming to the market, 10 this year,
                    compared to 4 last year. 
                    43% fewer homes sales, 4 this year, compared to 7 last year.

Looking at the Home Sales for January, normally if we see an increase or decrease in sales, we will see a corresponding change, increase or decrease, the month before in homes coming to the market.

I looked back at November and December 2019, those 2 months for all categories of homes in Flagstaff, we had only 2 additional homes come to the market over the prior year, 4 more in November, 2 less in December.

The chart at the left are figures nationwide, showing this is not just a Flagstaff trend.

A combination of better weather and better interest rates definitely helped the Real Estate Market and severely depleted our housing inventory.So, what happened, since the number of homes were not there in the prior months to support a 79% increase in homes sales in January?

When looking at the general Flagstaff area, for all home types, we had 17.2% fewer homes on the market at the end of January this year than last. 
We are also sitting at a 2.89 month’s supply on-hand, which could be the lowest we have seen for quite some time, compared to last year 3.53 month’s supply.
The Experts in Real Estate say 6 months is a good even number to strive for, any less, we are in a seller’s market, any higher in a buyer’s market.

If you are a Buyer: All is not lost, just reaction times are shorter. Inventory is tight and you do not want to make the error of reacting too fast. On the other side of that coin you cannot wait a few days to look at the home you have an interest in.  Once you have a good idea of what you want in a home and find that home, reaction time will be key to the success of getting an accepted offer. Before making that offer, we will do the  research to make sure the asking price and your offer price are similar to other comparable homes sold in the same neighborhood.

If you are a Seller;
Timing is good, maybe the best we have seen for years.
Number of homes on the market are at a level we have not seen for years, interest rates for buyers are low and expected to stay close to our current levels for the remainder of the year.
At one time, we said the key selling season was Spring, Summer and early Fall, but not today!

This is one of the strongest selling markets we have seen in quite some time... 

With all this said,

A combination of low inventory and low interest rates may make for an interesting 2020, something we will keep a close eye on as we move through the year.

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