For the 12-month period ended March 31, 2019, there were building permits issued for 748 new homes in St Louis County, a decline of 23.60% from the prior 12-month period, according to the latest data from the St Louis HBA. As the table below shows, St Charles County saw a decline of 11.23% during the same period. Last month, those were the only two counties showing a downward trend, but, this month, Franklin County and the City of St Louis have also seen new home construction trend downward. Warren County again showed the greatest upward trend in new home construction with an increase of 23.66% in building permits during the most recent 12-month period from the prior 12-month period.
According to the latest estimates by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), there are approximately 2 million licensed real estate agents in the United States. Last year, according to the NAR, there were a total of 5.341 million existing homes sold which equates to one agent for every 2.67 homes sold during the year in the U.S. Wow, talk about competition! Granted, not all licensed agents sell residential real estate as many focus us on commercial real estate, including industrial, retail, office, multi-family, and land, and others focus on farms, large tracts of land, recreational property, etc. Nonetheless, there is still a lot of competition in the real estate industry.
As of last month, there are 1,327,880 real estate agents that are members of the National Associaton of REALTORS® (NAR) and, according to a survey done by NAR of its membership, 70% of their members (929,516) list residential real estate brokerage and their primary field of practice.
How to choose a good real estate agent….
One question that is frequently asked by people interested in buying or selling a home is how should they choose a real estate agent? You can find extensive information on how to choose a good agent at AvoidBadAgents.com, but below is a list of questions to consider asking an agent you are considering working with:
- Are you a full-time real estate agent?
- Are you a REALTOR®?
- How long have you been an agent?
- What professional designations and industry awards have you received?
- How do they communicate?
- Do they know technology and does their firm use it for your benefit?
- Ask to be walked through the sales transaction.
Year to date, through the end of March, there have been 4,829 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market, a decline of 6.3% from this time last year when 5,156 homes had sold. As the second chart below illustrates, the St Louis home sales trend (trailing 12 months and represented by the dark green line) peaked in October 2018 with 26,032 homes sold in the prior 12 months but then stalled and has begun a slight downward trend since with 25,583 homes sold in the 12 month period ending in March 2019.
Meanwhile, St Louis home prices continue to rise with the median price of homes sold in the past 12 months in the 5-County Core market increasing 4.79% from the prior 12-month period. As the table below the charts shows, the median price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market during the most recent 12-month period was $198,950, an increase of 5.26% from the prior 12-month period when the median home price was $189,000.
The inventory of homes for sale has declined from last month, with just s 2.33 month supply of homes for sale in the St Louis 5-County Core Market.
During the first quarter of this year, there were foreclosure filings on 1,948 properties in the St. Louis MSA, which equates to 1 foreclosure filing for every 51 housing units, according to the latest data from ATTOM Data Research. As the table below, which shows data for the 20-largest metro areas in the U.S., shows, this foreclosure rate puts St Louis at number 7 on the list in terms of foreclosure rate.
1st Quarter 2019 – Foreclosure Filings – 20 Largest MSA’s
Data Source: ATTOM Data Solutions -© 2019 St Louis Real Estate News
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According to the report, Missouri was one of the top five states for increases in fraud risk for each of the past two years, moving from number 38 in the 2nd quarter of 2016 up to 15 for the 4th quarter of 2018. The top risk factor behind Missouri’s increased mortgage fraud risk was income fraud.
Fraud Type Indicators for States with Highest Year-Over-Year Risk Growth
source: CoreLogic
Real Property Tax Rates In Missouri For 2018 By County
(Click on the table for the complete list)
Date Source ATTOM Data Solutions
©2019 – All Rights Reserved – St Louis Real Estate News
To see how the three MSA’s in Missouri stack up, click here to see the entire list.
Real Property Tax Rates In The U.S. For 2018 By MSA
(Click on the table for the complete list)
Date Source ATTOM Data Solutions
©2019 – All Rights Reserved – St Louis Real Estate News
If you are a homeowner thinking of selling and see your city on this list, now would be a really good time to consider listing your home for sale!
10 Fastest SOLD Cities In St Louis Metro Area in Past 30 Days
(click on table for complete, live list)
Sell Your Home For The Highest Price In The Least Amount of Time! See how- STLSellersAdvantage.com
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On a positive note, St Charles County had an affordability index of 101 for the quarter, meaning that homes were slightly more affordable there than the historic average. St Clair County had the best affordability index at 103 and the City of St Louis had the worst at 93.
St Louis Area Home Affordability – 1st Quarter 2019
First, we should address a “better deal” and what constitutes a good “deal”. If it is strictly price, then, while I think it is somewhat short-sided on the part of the buyer and falls in that “penny-wise, dollar-foolish” category, in some instances, with some builders, the builder will save some cost by you buying from their agent. This is the result of the builder having an agent that will get paid less commission that the builder would pay a buyer’s agent then if the builder chooses to pass that savings along to the buyer, rather than keep it, the buyer should receive a better price. However, just like the possible savings motivated the buyer to deal directly with the builder, it is unrealistic to think that a builder is not going to feel the same and be motivated to have a better profit margin dealing directly with the buyer and instead would choose to forego the savings and give it to the buyer in the price. Plus, most builders appreciate and understand, the vital role a buyer’s agent plays in the transaction and wants to encourage agents to show and sell their homes, so they typically avoid doing things that look like they are trying to cut an agent out of a deal by dealing directly with the buyer.
Sellers pay the buyers’ agent in almost all home sales in St Louis…
While I don’t know for sure, I would guess that the people surveyed were homeowners that planned to sell their homes, rather than sellers that already had their homes listed for sale. I say this because the standard listing agreement used by St Louis REALTORS® spells out the total commission being charged the seller, as well as the portion of the commission that will be paid to the buyers’ agent which I would think, would cause the seller to realize they are paying commission to the buyers’ agent.
While the seller, when presented with the listing agreement, could opt to not offer to pay commission to the buyer’s agent, the MLS rules require that all listings in the MLS (which is most of the St Louis home sales) include an “offer of compensation” for the buyers’ agent, which will come from the seller. Therefore, the sellers have to either offer to pay the buyer’s agent or forego having their listing in the MLS, hence why sellers pay the buyers agent in nearly all instances. It’s probably worth noting at this juncture that this practice has come under attack in a recent class-action lawsuit filed by Christopher Moehrl against The National Association of REALTORS®, Realogy Holdings Corp, HomeServices of America, Inc, Re/Max Holdings, Inc and Keller Williams Realty, Inc. The suit, which can be accessed using the link below, seeks to ban this type of commission arrangement.
Christopher Moehrl v The National Association of REALTORS®
Meanwhile, St Louis home prices continue to rise with the median price of homes sold in the past 12 months in the 5-County Core market increasing 4.79% from the prior 12-month period. As the table below the charts shows, the median price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market during the most recent 12-month period was $197,000, up from $188,000 during the prior 12-month period.
The inventory of homes for sale remains low, with just s 2.5 month supply of homes for sale in the St Louis 5-County Core Market.
Thinking of selling and want to know if your neighborhood is a seller's market? Contact us and we'll answer that question for you.You can now subscribe to our ITUNES Podcast Channel to receive our updated market videos via podcast automatically each week! Just click here, then click on "Subscribe Free".)
Sell Your Home For The Highest Price In The Least Amount of Time! See how- STLSellersAdvantage.com
Save Commission On Your Home Sale Without Sacrificing Service! See how- FairCommissionRates.com
Obviously, only time will tell as to whether the Better Together Plan will even get the required number of signatures on the petition, if so, then whether the voters pass it. It is only then, in the subsequent months and years afterward that we will really be able to see just what impact, favorably or negatively, it has on the St Louis real estate market. For now, however, it seemed a good time to take a look at the St Charles County and St Louis County real estate markets and compare them.
STL Market Report – St Louis MSA
As the table below shows, the vacancy rate for the 4th quarter of 2018 was 6.6%, down from 6.9% the quarter before and down from 9.2% a year ago.
St Louis MSA Homeownership Rate -2011 – 2018
If you are a homeowner thinking of selling and see your city on this list, now would be a really good time to consider listing your home for sale!
Sell Your Home For The Highest Price In The Least Amount of Time! See how- STLSellersAdvantage.com
Save Commission On Your Home Sale Without Sacrificing Service! See how- FairCommissionRates.com
10 Fastest SOLD Cities In St Louis Metro Area in Past 30 Days
What is meant by “flipped” home?
ATTOM Data considers any home or condo that was sold during the third quarter of this year in an arms-length sale that had previously had an arms-length sale within the prior 12 months as well as a “flip”. Since homeowners don’t tend to buy a home only to turn around and resell it within a year, when this does occur it is typically the result of an investor buying a property, renovating it, then reselling it.
St Louis House Flips 2018
St Louis House Flips Average Gross Profit
As the table below shows, St Charles County continues to see the largest decline in new home construction with 1,489 new home permits issued in the most recent 12-month period, down 13.03% from the prior 12 month period. Four counties in the St Louis area have seen gains in permits, with Warren County being the big winner in terms of percentage increase with nearly a 30 percent increase in new home permits for the period!
St Louis New Home Building Permits Issued – Jan 2019
A quick, and current, example…The St Louis Housing Inventory…
A report was released this past week from within the real estate industry that indicated there was an “inventory of homes for sale” of 3,272 in the City and County of St Louis combined and that this was “down 24.9% from 2018“. I saw many well-meaning real estate agents copy and paste the graphic or data on Facebook with messages that, if a buyer would create a little bit of a panic or concern on “missing out” and, if a seller, thinking competition is down so now is a good time to list your home and name your price.
St Louis Home Prices May Hit Resistance But So Far So Good..
There has been a lot of talk lately about a “price correction” coming in the housing market and I have discussed the possibility of it for the St Louis market as well. However, as the bottom chart shows, St Louis home prices during the past 5 years have been very consistent with an upward trend over time with the normal seasonal fluctuations along the way. Looking at the most recent couple of months as well as the past year as a whole doesn’t reveal any change in the trend at this point. Of course, this is something that can change quickly and I’ll be keeping an eye on it in the coming months but for now, things still look good for 2019 here in St Louis.
Currently, 14 of the 17 counties that make up the St Louis MSA have a supply of homes for sale under 6 months. Two of the three counties that favor buyers, Macoupin and Calhoun, are in Illinois with St Francois County being the only Missouri County and it just barely made the list with a 6.26 month supply.
The outlook for mortgage interest rates looks promising as well with the most recent Fannie Mae Housing Forecast predicting the 30-year fixed rate will stay at 4.5% through the end of 2020.
Proponents of the plan say it will make St Louis the 9th largest city in the U.S., will streamline government, dilute the city crime stats making them appear to be better and, in the end, lead to increased economic development and growth for the region.
Opponents, such as the Municipal League of Metro St Louis argue that their (Better Together) plan is unconstitutional (hence why the Missouri Constitution must be changed to permit it) and that “the great divorce”, the label applied to when the city of St Louis separated from St Louis County back in 1876 was done using the Board of Freeholders, so if the two want to get back together, the same approach should be done to accomplish it (Board of Freeholders). Additionally, the opponents argue that allowing the entire state to decide the fate of the people of these two counties is wrong, that historic cities (such as Florissant and Kirkwood) will be disbanded and, in the end, the underlying problems that hinder growth here won’t’ really be addressed.
The proceeding is, of course, my very brief synopsis of the two views as I see them so I would suggest you research the matter for yourself and have included some resources below to do just that.
- Better Together City-County Unification Plan
- Report on Governance Issues in the Better Together Plan by E. Terrence (Terry) Jones, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy Administration at the University of Missouri at St Louis.
- Riverfront Times Article on the Better Together Plan
What the Better Together Plan means for St Louis home prices.
Continue reading The Better Together Plan And St Louis Real Estate
Thinking of selling and want to know if your neighborhood is a seller's market? Contact us and we'll answer that question for you.You can now subscribe to our ITUNES Podcast Channel to receive our updated market videos via podcast automatically each week! Just click here, then click on "Subscribe Free".)
Sell Your Home For The Highest Price In The Least Amount of Time! See how- STLSellersAdvantage.com
Save Commission On Your Home Sale Without Sacrificing Service! See how- FairCommissionRates.com
