There were 4,956 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during the 12-month period ended February 28, 2021 an increase of 11.0% from the same period a year ago when there were 4,465 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). For the forth month in a row, All seven counties covered in the report saw an increase in building permits from the same period a year ago and with double-digit increases for four counties. Lincoln County saw the largest increase at 63.64% followed by St Louis County at 14.64%.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – February 2021
The inventory of homes for sale may be low, but that doesn’t appear to be slowing down the pace of home sales. As the STL Real Estate Trends Report below shows (which is exclusively available from MORE, REALTORS®) during the most recent week that data is available for, there were 1,151 new contracts written on listings in the St Louis MSA, an increase of 54% from the same period a year ago when there were 746 contracts written.
New listings are up as well during the same period. Again, referring to STL Real Estate Trends Report from MORE, REALTORS® this time for listings, we see that there were 908 new listings during the most recently reported week, an increase of 26% from the same period last year.
For the week ended April 3rd, new sales out paced new listings by 26% so it doesn’t appear we are going to see any change in the low supply of homes for sale anytime soon.
Local Home Trends Report- New Contracts
(click on report for live, current report)
Local Home Trends Report- New Listings
(click on report for live, current report)
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
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) earlier this week proposed rule changes that would help prevent “avoidable foreclosures” that will come about when the current foreclosure ban expires June 30th. According to the CFPB, nearly 3 million homeowners are delinquent on their mortgages as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the economic issues that have come about as a result.
The CFPB’s proposed rule changes include:
Require a pre-foreclosure review period that would generally prohibit loan servicers from starting foreclosure until after December 31, 2021 on loans secured by a borrower’s principal residence.
Permit loan servicers to offer “certain streamlined loan modification options to borrowers with COVID-19-related hardships.”
The CFPB is going to accept comments on their proposed rules until May 11, 2011 and then afterward will decide how to proceed.
About the CFPB (from their website)
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visitwww.consumerfinance.gov.
There are a total of seventeen counties that make up the St Louis MSA with 9 of them being on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River and the other 8 on the Illinois side. For some reason, I was curious today if the portion of the St Louis MSA in one state was outperforming the other or if they were performing about the same. I guess my expectation was probably the latter but the data showed that in fact, during the past three months, they were closed, but each state has its bragging rights depending on which data point you look at.
The tables and charts below (available exclusively from MORE, REALTORS®) show more details but below are some highlights of the comparisons between the counties in the two states:
Sold home prices in Missouri for December were at a median price of $226,500 in December then dipped in January, as expected but rebounded back in February to a median price of $225,000 or 99.3% of the December price. Illinois, on the other hand, had a median price of $150,000 in December then actually increased in January but then fell to $137,750 in February, or 91.8% of the December price.
The number of home sales paints a different picture though. For the Missouri counties, there were 2,819 homes sold in December and 1,849 in February, for a decrease of 34%. In the Illinois counties, there were 744 homes sold in December and 554 in February for a 26% decrease.
As any home buyer in the market is well aware no doubt, we have a low inventory of homes for sale in the St Louis MSA. As the STL Market Report below shows (which is exclusivley available from MORE, REALTORS®) there is currently just a 1.2 month supply of active listings in the St Louis metro area. It doesn’t look like the situation is improving either as MORE’s Local Home Trends Reports at the bottom show that new contracts in the past two weeks have outpaced new listings during the same period. There were 2,105 new contracts written for the sale of a home and there were 1,976 new listings of homes for sale. With the new sales outpacing new listings by a little over 6% it indicates we are not going to see any improvement in the inventory in the near term.
For the 12-month period ended February 28, 2021, there were 29,402 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County core market. As the 15-year chart below (available exclusively from MORE, REALTORS®) shows, this is the highest 12-month sales period in more than 15 years! Going back to 2006, a historic banner year for real estate, we find that the 12-month period ended March 31, 2006, came in close at 28,797 homes sold, but that’s a little over 2% below our most recent 12-month period.
But, can St Louis home sales keep up this pace?
Having a record-setting period for home sales is great but, practically speaking, it’s hard to sustain a record level for long so typically sales would ease after a record period and settle into a “norm”. Having been in this business for 40 years, I’ve seen many of these periods and the $64 question is always the same. How long can it last? I’m not going to even pretend I have that answer as there are too many variables including the continued impact of the pandemic on the economy and life in general, rising oil and gas prices, rising government debt, and uncertainty about the economy to name just a few. Oh, and did I mention the lack of inventory? It’s hard to maintain record sales levels when there are not enough products to sell.
If you are in the process of trying to find a home to purchase or have gone through the process in the last couple of years, I don’t need to tell you how low the inventory of homes for sale is. Currently, in the St Louis 5-County core market, there is less than a one-month supply of homes for sale (0.85 months).
However, within that area, there are 21 zip codes that have a current supply of at least double that, 1.7 months or more. As the chart below shows, the supply of homes for sale in these zip codes ranges from a high of 9 months in 63115 down to 1.71 months in 63367. There are a total of 9 zip codes that have a supply greater than triple the median of 0.85 months (2.55 months+).
As the chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in Jefferson County climbed to $200,413 in February from $192,000 the month before and sales plummeted from 220 in January to 81 in February.
In February last year, the median price of homes sold was $180,000 so the price of $200,413 last month represents an 11 percent increase. The number of homes sold in February 2020 was 217 so with just 81 homes sold last month, there was a 63% decline in sales for the month.
As the chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in Franklin County remained at $196,000 in February the same as the month before. There were 82 homes sold in Franklin County in February, one more than the month before.
In February last year, the median price of homes sold was $155,000 so the price of $196,000 last month represents a 26 percent increase. The number of homes sold in February 2020 was 59 so the number of homes sold last month was 39% higher than a year ago.
As the chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in St Charles County jumped to $275,000 last month approaching the record-high price of $279,000 set this past August. This is the second consecutive month the median price has increased and is contrary to the norm. Last year home prices fell to a low of $235,000 in February.
Though home prices didn’t follow the typical pattern and fall during the winter in St Charles County, home sales did. Home sales last month followed that pattern falling to 333 homes sold, similar to last year’s February sales of 320 homes.
As the chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in St Louis City and County jumped to $220,000 last month from $204,000 the month before. While home prices increased during the month, the number of homes sold fell slightly to 1,027 homes in the two-county area, down from 1,085 the month before.
As the table below the chart shows, there have been nearly 18,000 homes sold during the past 12 months in the City and County of St Louis at a median sold price of $220,580. The homes sold during the past 12 months sold for a median price of 100% of the original asking price and took a median time of just 20 days to sell. Can you say Seller’s Market? :)
In spite of having been in a low-inventory market for the past few years, home sales in St Louis have continued strong. In fact, as the home sales trend chart below, exclusively available from MORE, REALTORS®, shows home sales trend for the 12-month period ending February 28th was at the highest level in over 10-years.
The chart includes the St Louis 5-County core market (the city of St Louis and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Franklin, and Jefferson) and shows that for the 12-month period ending last month there were 28,571 homes sold (distressed home sales have been excluded). This is slightly above the 12-month period ending the month before when there were 28,492 homes sold.
As the list below shows, five of the ten zip codes in the St Louis MSA where homes that closed in the past 30 days sold the fastest are in St Louis County. However, the fastest-sold zip code was 63052 in Jefferson County and includes the cities Imperial, Kimmswick, Antonia, and Liguori.
Ten Fastest-Selling Zip Codes In The St Louis MSA
(click on the list for a complete and current list)
There were 4,864 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during the 12-month period ended January 31, 2021, an increase of 9.6% from a year ago when there were 4,438 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). For the second month in a row, Like last month, all seven counties covered in the report saw an increase in building permits during the most recent 12-month period from the prior 12-month period. Lincoln County saw the largest increase at 52.7% followed by Franklin County at 17.69%.
According to a report just released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), titled “Housing insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic“, there are over 2 million homeowners that have fallen behind at least three months on their mortgage payments. This represents a 250% increase from pre-Covid-19 levels and is now at a level we haven’t seen since the height of the Great Recession in 2010.
Homeowners with an FHA mortgage delinquency rates double rate for all loans:
As the chart below shows, homeowners with an FHA mortgage hit a serious mortgage delinquency rate of 10.8% during the 3rd quarter of 2020, with the rate for all mortgages was just under half that at 5.2%.
As the list below shows, seven of the ten school districts in the St Louis MSA where homes are selling the fastest, are in outer-ring counties, with the remaining three districts being in St Louis County. This list is based upon the average time it took homes to sell that closed in the past 30 days and Wright City R-II District came in at the top of the list with an average of 14 days for homes to sell. St Charles County was home to the largest number of the fastest-selling school districts with 4 followed by St Louis County with 3, Warren County with 2, and 1 in Jefferson County.
Ten Fastest-Selling School Districts In The St Louis MSA
(click on the list for a complete and current list)
The St Louis real estate market has started off 2021 strong, but is a change coming? Closings of home sales in January were strong with more sales closing than in January of last year, but with everything going and the uncertainty of the economy will it continue? I address both the current state of the St Louis real estate market, as well as discuss our “leading indicator” data which gives us a glimpse of where the market is headed in the St Louis Real Estate Market Update video you can access below.
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
One of the many benefits to living in St Louis is it’s a very affordable place to live and much easier to be a homeowner than in most other major metro areas. Having said that, we do have areas, such as Ladue, Huntleigh, and Clayton to name a few where we do see home prices that are out of reach for most of the folks living here. One such example is a magnificent 10,000+ square foot Ladue manse that sold earlier this month. At a final sales price of $6,150,000, it is the highest-priced home sale in the REALTOR® MLS in more than 2 years.
See what $6 million gets you in a St Louis home by clicking here – be sure to click on the video to see the tour of this beautiful home.
I would say for pretty much most of the 40-years I’ve been in the real estate business in St Louis, one-story homes have been popular. The trend shifted with new homes however as undeveloped ground became more scarce and demand for larger homes grew, which led to two-story homes gaining in popularity. There are of course other styles, such as 1.5 story homes, 2.5 or 3 story homes, and multi-level homes, but one and two-story are the most plentiful.
One-story homes outsell 2-story homes by nearly 3-1:
As the tables below show, in the St Louis MSA during the past months, there have been 11,898 1-story homes sold, 2.7 times as many 2-story homes sold during the same period. With 4,380 2-story homes sold this was nearly double the next most popular style, 1.5 story homes of which 2,370 sold.
One-story homes sold the fastest:
The popular 1-story home also sold faster than other styles, taking a median time of just 27 days to sell while 1.5 story homes took 38 days and 2-story homes 32 days.
Two-story homes that sold were the youngest:
The one-story homes that sold were a median age of 54 years, while the median age of the two-story homes was just 31 years.
The St Louis real estate market has slowed a little in February thus far. As the Local Market Trends reports (availably exclusively from MORE, REALTORS® ) show, new contracts written on listings as well as new listings in St Louis 5-County Core market, were down in each of the first two weeks of February both from the prior week as well as from the same period a year ago.
New contracts written (new sales):
As the reports below show, there were 590 new contracts written (new sales) on homes during the 2nd week of February which was 13% fewer contracts than were written the same week a year ago and 7% fewer than the prior week.
New listings:
As the reports below illustrate, there were 537 new listings of homes during the 2nd week of February which was 9% fewer new listings than during the same period a year ago and 8% fewer new listings than the prior week.
Local Market Trends – New contracts written on homes
President Joe Biden on Tuesday extended the ban on home foreclosures for federally backed mortgages until June 30, 2021. This is the second extension of the ban which was originally set to expire January 31, 2021, but then previously extended by President Biden to March 31, 2021.
Meanwhile, as the chart below shows, serious delinquencies on home mortgages have been on the rise since nearly the beginning of the pandemic almost a year ago. The ban on foreclosures is certainly a welcome relief to those struggling to make their house payments. However, with such a high delinquency rate one has to wonder if it is just delaying the inevitable and that this is sort of a ticking time bomb for the real estate market? I say that because with the number of mortgage delinquencies piling up it is safe to assume that once the ban is over there will be a massive amount of foreclosures hitting the market which may very well have a negative impact on the market.
It’s no secret that listings of homes for sale in St Louis are in short supply and for a while now new sales have outpaced new listings making it a challenge for home buyers. However, over the past couple of months, new sales of homes in St Louis County have outpaced new listings by a greater margin than neighboring counties. As can be compiled from the tables below, new sales of homes in the St Louis 5-County Core market during the last four months outpaced new listings during the same period by 12.7%. For St Louis county, there were 6,095 new contracts written during the last 4 months and 5,353 new listings resulting in new contracts outpacing new listings by 13.9%, a rate 1.2% higher than the rate for the 5-county area as a whole. Franklin County had the next highest rate at 10.7%, then Jefferson County at 9.4%, St Charles County at 5.8%, and then the city of St Louis was the only county where new contracts were about equal to new listings.
In December I wrote aboutmultiple class-action lawsuits filed against the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), as well as some of the largest real estate brokerages, like ReMax and Keller Williams as well as a Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint filed again NAR over issues related to the lack of transparency in the home buying process.
The aforementioned complaints claim, among other things, that there has been an effort by the defendants to force buyers to pay an “inflated” price for a home as a result of the buyer not realizing the seller was forced to offer a commission to a buyer’s agent in order to get their listing in the MLS. In addition, they claim that NAR and its members misrepresented to buyers that a buyer’s agent’s representation and services were “free”, when in fact their agent was being paid a commission, which came from the seller and as a result, they claim this expense inflated the cost the buyer was forced to pay for the home.
I’m not here to address the accuracy of the claims made in these complaints nor get into an analysis of the legal merits of the case, but instead just want to address the changes I see that have already taken place or will take place in the home-buying process. NAR has already reached a settlement with the DOJ in which they (NAR) agreed to make several changes, so those are pretty easy to predict and I think I have a reasonable idea of some other changes that will come along in the comings months as well.
So, what are these changes I see coming to the home-buying process in terms of transparency?
Below are some of the changes I already see or expect to see:
Buyer’s agents aren’t FREE, nor should they be. NAR has already agreed to prohibit their members from claiming their services are free as they are not. A good buyer’s agent is invaluable to a home buyer and not only will earn the commission they make but in many cases, will “pay for themselves”. What I mean by this is their guidance and advice to their clients, which comes from their knowledge of the market and process, as well as experience, will help their clients avoid pitfalls and to make informed, good decisions.
Commission transparency. Prior to the lawsuits, many MLS’s around the country, including the one that serves the St Louis area, prohibited the amount of commission being offered to a buyer’s agent by the seller from being shown on broker’s real estate search websites. MARIS, the company that provides the MLS for St Louis area REALTORS® was quick and pro-active in this area and began allowing brokers to display buyer’s agent’s commission on their websites. I’m happy to say that my company, MORE, REALTORS® was, I believe, one of the first brokerages in the area to begin displaying this information. On STLMLS.com consumers can find the amount of commission being offered to buyer’s agents on listings. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I’m on the board of directors for MARIS and I’m an officer and shareholder of MORE, REALTORS.
Sellers won’t have to offer to pay a buyer’s agent to get in the MLS. While the first two bullet-points above are things that have happened, now I’m predicting what will happen. I believe that soon, perhaps as soon as “months” or as long as a year or two, the MLS requirement that a seller offers compensation to a buyer’s agent to have their listing be in the MLS will be dropped. This is nothing that should cause panic as buyer’s agents won’t go away nor work for free, it’s just the structure of the transaction will change. The changes made will no doubt provide a much greater level of transparency to the buyer though as I believe they will have a clear picture of the process including how their buyer’s agent is getting paid.
Agents won’t have to be REALTORS® to be part of the MLS. Even though this is already true in several parts of the country, most MLS’s require that agents be a REALTOR® (so be a member of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR)) to join the MLS. I believe that all MLS’s in the country will be forced to allow participation by all licensed real estate brokers and agents and not just REALTORS®. I think my prior prediction will come to fruition sooner and this one will follow so it will likely be a couple of years at least before this happens.
The bottom line is some obstacles exist today for the real estate industry as well as there are changes taking place and more coming. While many folks don’t embrace change, call me a Pollyanna, but I think the result will be positive both for the real estate professional as well as the consumer that is buying or selling a home.
I’ll close with a quote on the topic of obstacles that I frequently share on a coaching session I do for our agents that is from Victor Kiam (the Remington razor guy) – “….there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity…”
There were 4,816 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during 2020, an increase of 9.11% from 2019 when there were 4,414 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). For the second month in a row, All seven counties covered in the report saw an increase in building permits during 2020 from 2019 and with double-digit increases for four counties. Franklin County saw the largest increase at 19.40% followed by Lincoln County at 13.97%.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – December 2020
The homeownership rate in the St Louis MSA for the fourth quarter of 2020 was 69.3%, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This is a slight increase from the 4th quarter of the prior year when the homeownership rate in the St Louis MSA was 68.3%. This puts St Louis 23rd on the list of the 75 largest MSA’s in the country in terms of homeownership, down from 17th on the list during the prior quarter.
The residential real estate market in counties in the Missouri portion of the St Louis metropolitan area appear to be outperforming the St Louis MSA counties in Illinois, according to the latest New Contracts Report below, exclusively from MORE, REALTORS®. As the report shows, for the most recent week reported, new contracts written on residential listings were up 14% for the St Louis MSA as a whole from the same week a year ago, but most of the increase in sales was in the Missouri portion of the MSA. Overall, in the St Louis MSA, there were 105 more new sales in the most recent week vs the same time a year ago and 97 of the increased sales were in counties located in Missouri with the remaining 8 being from counties located in Illinois.
St Louis MSA Counties – New Contracts on Home Listings
For home buyers that have been in the market lately this won’t come as a surprise, but the inventory of homes for sale continues to remain low in St Louis. In fact, in 43 zip code areas in St Louis, there is a 1 month supply or less of homes for sale. As the table below shows, the 10 zip-codes in the St Louis core market with the lowest inventory have about 1/3 of a month’s supply or less. Historically, a 4-6 month supply of homes for sale would be considered “normal”.
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
St Louis 5-County Core Market Supply Of Active Listings By Zip Code
(click on the table for the complete, current list)
It probably won’t come as a surprise that many of St Louis’ best school districts also have some of St Louis’ most expensive home prices. As the list below shows, the Ladue School district has the highest-priced homes with the average price for homes sold in the past 12 months at nearly $900,000. Of the top 10 highest priced school districts, 8 are in St Louis County, one in St Charles County and one in Franklin County.
St Louis 5-County Core’s Most Expensive School Districts
One of the benefits to living in St Louis we often hear about is how affordable it is compared with many other metro areas around the country. Granted, one of the things that contribute to the “affordability” is the price of homes but that doesn’t mean we don’t have areas with pricey real estate here. The list below is part of the list showing what the average price homes sold for in every municipality in the St Louis MSA during the past 12 months and reveals the five municipalities where the average home price exceeded $1 Million.
Leading the list is the relatively small, but expensive, Country Life Acres where homes in the past 12 months sold for an average of $1,621.564.
St Louis 5-County CORE Market’s Most Expensive Municipalities
As of this morning, the Hancock Place School District and Bayless School District, both in the South St Louis County area, are tied for the district where homes are selling the fastest. As the Fastest-Selling School Districts in the St Louis MSA list (available exclusively from MORE, REALTORS®) below shows, homes that sold in the past 30 days in those districts took an average of just 17 days to sell. Five of the top 10 districts for fast home sales are located in St Louis County, two are in Jefferson County, one each in St Charles County, Warren County, and Madison District 12 in Illinois.
Missouri Online Real Estate, Inc. 3636 South Geyer Road - Suite 100, St Louis, MO 63127 314-414-6000 - Licensed Real Estate Broker in Missouri
The owner and authors this site are providing the information on this web site for general informational purposes only and make no representations, warranties (expressed or implied) or guarantees of any kind whatsoever, as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or of any information found by following any link on this site. Furthermore, the owner and authors of this site will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any errors or omissions in information on this site, nor for the availability of this information. Additionally the owner and authors of this site will not be liable for for any losses, injuries or damages in any way from the display or use of this information or as the result of following external links displayed on this site, or by responding to advertisements displayed, or contained, on this site
In using this site, users acknowledge and agree that the information on this site does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services, investment advice, or professional consulting of any kind nor should it be construed as such. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional tax, accounting, legal, or other competent advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action on this information, you should consult a qualified professional adviser to whom you have provided all of the facts applicable to your particular situation or question. None of the tax information on this web site is intended to be used nor can it be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer.
All of the information on this site is provided as is, with no assurance or guarantee of completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose.
This site contains external links to other sites not owned or controlled by the owner of this site, therefore the owner of this site does not control or guarantee in any manner the accuracy or relevancy of any information obtained through following such links. Links contained on this site are for users convenience and users should exercise extreme caution when following links. Including a link on this site does not constitute an endorsement of the site linked to or any views or opinions expressed on the site, products or services offered on outside sites or the companies or organizations that own and operate outside sites.
This site may accept payment for advertising, for displaying advertisements, through affiliate relationships with companies or may receive referral fees or commissions from companies as a result of recommending or referring people to a website. This site may also accept free product samples, free services, gift cards or cash to review a product or service. All paid and sponsored content may not always be identified as such. Any product claim, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
In December
