Last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)announced that effective January 1s, 2021, the maximum loan amounts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conforming loans will be increased from $510,400 to $548,250. Once a home buyers loan amount exceeds the Fannie and Freddie limits, their loan is considered a “jumbo” loan and typically less attractive terms, so an increase in the Fannie and Freddie limits is definitely helpful to home buyers in higher price ranges.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also increasing the loan limits for loans to purchase multi-family properties as well. The multi-family property limits for 2021 are:
- Two Units – $702,000
- Three Units – $848,500
- Four Units – $1,054,500
The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has come under attack over the past few months as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits, Christopher Moehrl v The National Association of REALTORS® and Joshua A. Sitzer and Amy Winger v The National Association of REALTORS® filed in March and April of 2019 respectively, and, most recently, a complaint brought by the Department of Justice, United States v National Association of REALTORS® filed this month. The latter came with a pre-arranged proposed settlement with NAR. I should also mention the two class-action lawsuits have as additional defendants Realogy Holdings Corp (the own and operate several franchises, some of the local ones include Coldwell Banker-Gundaker, Better Homes & Gardens, ERA, Sotheby’s, and Century-21), HomeServices of America, Inc. (owner of Berkshire Hathway Home Services), Re/Max and Keller Williams.
While there are additional issues raised in the lawsuits and DOJ complaint, central to them are buyer’s agents’ commissions. Issues raised include:
- From the DOJ complaint:
- Allowing buyer brokers to misrepresent to buyers that a buyer broker’s services are free;
- Enabling buyer brokers to filter MLS listings based on the level of buyer broker commissions offered and to exclude homes with lower commissions from consideration by potential home buyers;
- From the lawsuits:
- Sellers of residential property have been forced to pay inflated costs to sell their homes through forced payments of commissions to buyer brokers;
- Home sellers have been forced to set buyer broker commissions to induce buyer brokers to show the sellers’ homes to prospective buyers;
- Price competition has been restrained among brokers seeking to be retained by home buyers, and by brokers seeking to represent home sellers; and
- Defendant Franchisors and their franchisees have inflated their profits by a significant margin by the increased total commissions and increased buyer broker commissions.
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Continue reading “Coming Soon To A REALTOR® Near You – Commission Transparency“
Yesterday, I wrote an article titled “St Louis Home Sales – No end in sight?” in which one of my caveats had to do with listing inventory, noting the obvious that no matter how many homebuyers are out there, if there is nothing for them to buy, St Louis home sales will fall. As promised, I did an analysis of new listings and inventory using proprietary software we have developed at MORE, REALTORS to enable our agents to fully comprehend the market and be able to use that knowledge to serve their clients.
The first table below is our leading indicator report for new listings that were taken in the St Louis core market during the past week compared with the same week a year ago. As the table shows, listings for this period were up 18% from a year ago, which is good news but, as I reported yesterday, new sales were up 21% so sales rose at a higher rate than listings. The second table compares last week’s new listings with the prior week and, as yesterday’s home sales report showed, there was a decline, in the case of new listings taken they were down 5% from the prior week while yesterday I reported sales were down 10%. The report at the bottom is another proprietary product of MORE, REALTORS and it’s a report showing the current inventory of listings for sale in every zip code in the St Louis MSA of which I showed the 20 zips with the lowest inventory.
The bottom line…
To recap, new sales contracts written on listings in the past week outpaced the number of new listings by about 8% and new sales contracts written on listings in the past two weeks outpaced the number of new listings by nearly 11%. One thing to keep in mind is that a contract written does not equal a sold listing as a percentage of the contracts will fail to close due to building inspections, financing, appraisal issues, or other reasons so the gap is not quite as large as it may appear. The other thing to remember is the time of the year we are in…right before Thanksgiving is not a popular time for sellers to list their homes as many will wait until after Thanksgiving and some will wait until after Christmas. However, in today’s market, buyers don’t have that luxury…they have to be prepared to buy at any time or faced missing out in this tight market. So, for now, I think we’re ok and I think my caveat from yesterday is covered but I’ll be watching the inventory moving forward.
I think just about everyone that is trying to buy or sell a home in St Louis or even thinking about it, is well aware that we have been in a strong real estate market here in St Louis for some time now. The St Louis real estate market has favored sellers for the past several years largely due to a low supply of homes for sale and continuing demand by home buyers. The question I’m often asked though, especially right now with so much going on in our country right now that could impact the economy (COVID-19 and the Presidential election are the two biggies) is “will the strong home sale in St Louis continue?”.
To answer the question, being the Chief Data Nerd at MORE, REALTORS, I naturally turned to the proprietary software we have developed to help our agents answer questions like this for their clients. Based upon the data I’m sharing below, I would say the short answer to the question is that St Louis home sales appear to be poised to continue at a historically strong rate, at least for the near future. Now for the caveats, of which there are two big ones: the first is that this is contingent upon listing inventory as if there is nothing to buy it doesn’t matter how many buyers you have, and the second is absent something dramatic happening to the economy to really rock the boat. For the former question, I’ll address that in the next day or so with an article in which I’ll look at the listing inventory trend for St Louis.
Leading Indicators…
Looking at how many sales closed is helpful to see how the market is doing, but it’s much more advantageous and accurate to look at the current activity in the market, the leading indicators if you will, which are new contracts written on listings. Our exclusive Leading Indicators reports below show that all 5 counties in the St Louis Core market saw an increase in the number of new contracts written in the past week from the same week a year ago, in fact, overall a 21% increase. The second report below shows the same data versus the prior week and it shows an overall decrease of 10% in the number of new contracts from the week before with 3 of the five counties showing a decrease, but given that we are headed toward winter and the holidays this is normal. Finally, the chart at the bottom, another exclusive feature of MORE, REALTORS, which illustrates the prior 12-month home sales for each month in the past 5 years, clearly indicates an upward trend. For the 12-month period ending November 30 (which isn’t even over yet), there have been 28,153 homes sold, an increase of nearly 5% from a year ago.
There were4,628 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during July, an increase of 9.56% from a year ago when there were 4,224 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, Five of the seven counties covered in the report saw an increase in building permits from a year ago with three of them in the double digits. Franklin County saw the largest increase at 25.69% and Lincoln County experienced the largest decrease at 13.97%.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – August 2020
There were 4,573 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during July, an increase of 7.0% from a year ago when there were 4,271 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, Franklin County saw the largest percentage increase in building permits from a year ago with an increase of 27.59% from July 2019. St Louis County, which a decrease in permits last month from a year ago, so nearly an 11% increase in July 2020 from July 2019.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – July 2020
Yesterday, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the issuance of an order temporarily halting all residential evictions in the United States through December 31, 2020. The CDC indicated this action was being taken “to prevent further spread of COVID-19”.
Details of the order….
Under the order, a landlord or other owner of residential property, “shall not evict any covered person from any residential property in any jurisdiction to which this Order applies during the effective period of the Order.” So, it’s pretty simple, if you own a residential property in the U.S. that has a tenant in it, this order applies to you. The only exception is the American Samoa, which, at the time of the order, had not cases of COVID-19 reported.
Tenants are still obligated for rental payments…
The order makes it clear that it does not remove the tenant’s obligations to pay rent, nor the landlord’s ability to charge late fees, penalties, etc. Specifically, the order states: “This order does not relieve any individual of any obligation to pay rent, make a housing payment, or comply with any other obligation that the individual may have under a tenancy, lease, or similar contract. Nothing in this Order precludes the charging or collecting of fees, penalties, or interest as a result of the failure to pay rent or other housing payment on a timely basis, under the terms of any applicable contract.”
Tenants must submit a declaration form to take advantage of this protection…
According to the order, for a tenant to receive the protection under this order, an executed copy of a Declaration form must be submitted to their landlord, owner, or property manager.
See the entire order here.
Download the Declaration Form for tenants here.
Zombies are on the rise in St Louis! I’m referring, of course, to Zombie foreclosures and not the spooky creatures from scary movies. A zombie foreclosure is a property that is in “pre-foreclosure” meaning it is in the foreclosure process but has not been yet foreclosed upon and is vacant or abandoned by the current owner. We saw the levels of zombie foreclosures rise significantly after the housing bubble burst back in 2008 but then fall around 2012 as the market began its recovery. For the 3rd quarter of 2020, according to ATTOM Data Research, 10.8% of the homes in pre-foreclosure were vacant or otherwise known as “zombies foreclosures”. This is a fairly significant increase in the zombie rate from the prior quarter when 7.79% of the pre-foreclosures were vacant. A year ago, during the 3rd quarter of 2010, the zombie foreclosure rate was 7.77%.
St Louis vacant property rate rises during 3rd quarter as well..
As the table below also illustrates, 2.95% of the more than 1,000,000 residential properties in the St Louis MSA were vacant during the 3rd quarter of 2020 which is an increase from 2.88% for the 2nd quarter of 2020 as well as an increase from a year ago when the vacancy rate was 2.86%.
Given the impact of COVID-19 on the St Louis real estate market, particularly during the late winter/early spring months as well as a low-inventory market already, it should not come as a surprise that St Louis area home sales have trended downward somewhat during the past 12-months. As our STL Market Report below shows, for the 5-county core St Louis real estate market, there were 26,723 homes sold during the 12-month period ended July 31, 2020, a decline of 0.88% from the prior 12-month period when there were 26,960 homes sold. That very modest decline I think is actually very encouraging given what the market has been through with COVID-19.
St Louis 5-County Core Market Home Sales
St Charles County and Jefferson County are the exceptions…
While the overall 5-county market was down, individually, the counties of St Charles and Jefferson have both fared better and, in fact, had modest increases in home sales during this period. As the tables below show, there were 5,878 homes sold in St Charles county during the past 12-months, an increase of 1.08% from the prior 12 months. In Jefferson County, there were 3,406 homes sold during the past 12-months, an increase of 0.53% from the prior 12-months.
St Charles County Home Sales
Jefferson County Home Sales
During the second quarter of 2020, 32.3% of the homeowners with a mortgage within the 63110 zip-code, were equity-rich on their mortgage, meaning their mortgage balances were less than 50% of the value of their homes, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Research. As the table below shows, the zip codes of 63112 and 63143 were not far behind 63110, with equity-rich percentages of 31.6% and 30.0% respectively.
St Louis Equity-Rich Homeowners
(Click on table for the complete list)
During the second quarter of 2020, 45.5% of the homeowners with a mortgage within the 63115 zip code, were underwater on their mortgage, meaning they were in a negative-equity position, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Research. As the table below shows, the north county zip codes of 63137 and 63136 were not far behind at 45.1% and 41.3%, respectively. Of the 10 St Louis-area zip codes with the highest rate of underwater homeowners, 7 were in St Louis County and 3 in the City of St Louis.
St Louis Underwater (Negative-Equity) Homeowners By Zip Code – Top 10 Highest
(Click on table for live, complete list)
During the second quarter of 2020, 9.8% of the homeowners in St Louis with a mortgage, were underwater on their mortgage, meaning they were in a negative-equity position, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Research. As the table below shows, this is the lowest level of St Louis homeowners that are seriously underwater since 2013 when this data was first tracked. In spite of financial difficulties and hardships that people may be suffering as a result of COVID-19, the downward trend of underwater homeowners in St Louis that began during the 3rd quarter of 2019 continues.
St Louis Underwater (Negative-Equity) Homeowners
(Click on table for live, complete data from 2013-Present)
There were 4,468 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during June, an increase of 5.9% from a year ago when there were 4,219 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). However, the increase in new home construction activity was not shared equally around the St Louis area as the counties of St Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin all saw double-digit increases while the other four counties saw declines.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – June 2020
The St Louis MSA rental vacancy rate during the 2nd quarter of 2020 was 4.4%, the lowest rate in over 15 years, according to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. During the 2nd quarter of last year, the St Louis rental vacancy rate was 7.6%..
St Louis Rental Vacancy Rates – 2005 – Present
(click on table for complete data from 2005 – present)”
The homeownership rate in the St Louis MSA for the second quarter of this year was 74.0%, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This is an increase from 68.4% for the first quarter and moves St Louis from having the 22nd highest homeownership rate of the 75 largest MSAs in the US to the 13th highest!
Homeownership Rates By MSA – 2nd Quarter 2020
Continue reading “St Louis Has 13th Highest Homeownership Rate of Major Metros In 2nd Quarter“
After the COVID-19 pandemic hit St Louis and greatly curbed real estate activity back in March and April, the market was quick to recover and has come back in a pretty robust way. The impact is starting to show more though in home sales in the year-over-year and year to date numbers, however. As our STL Market Report for the St Louis MSA below shows, for the 12-months ended June 30, 2020, there were 36,657 homes sold throughout the St Louis metro area, a decline of just over 1% from a year ago when there were 37,040 homes sold during the same period.
STL Market Report- St Louis MSA
(click on report for live, current report)
St Louis Home Sales Trending Downward…
Continue reading “Home Sales Data In St Louis Reveals The Impact Of COVID-19“
Not only has it become common today for homes to sell as soon as they hit the market but receiving offers from multiple buyers and at prices that equal or even exceed the asking price is common as well. While this is an illustration of Economics 101, the rule and supply and demand, when the demand exceeds the supply (such as in the housing market in many price ranges and areas), prices increase this can also be a reminder of times past when home prices rose quickly for several years, then retreated rather abruptly. The most recent example of this, and arguably the worst during my 40 years in the real estate business, was the housing bubble that burst in 2008 sending home prices into a downward trend that lasted about 3 years.
So, are we headed to another housing bubble?
My focus is primarily on the St Louis housing market so I will focus on that but I will point out what I see with regard home prices, St Louis has a better outlook than at the national level.
Yesterday, I shared a report on new sales of listings in the St Louis MSA which showed sales were up 10% for the week from a year ago. Today, I created the report below which shows new listings during the same week, and while the number of new listings was up 8% for the week from a year ago, they still didn’t keep pace with the new sales. As the report reveals, there were 1155 new listings in the St Louis MSA last week and, as yesterday’s report showed, 1245 sales, so nearly 8% more new sales than new listings.
New Residential Listings – St Louis MSA
For the Week Ended June 13, 2020
Data Source: MARIS – Copyright 2020, MORE, REALTORS All Rights Reserved
COVID-19 who? While it’s still around, it’s impact on the St Louis real estate market has dissipated to the point that we are seeing activity at levels higher than this time last year. For example, as the report below shows, there were 1,245 new sales of residential listings in the St Louis MSA last week, an increase of 10 percent from the same time a year ago. St Charles County was the county with the second-highest number of sales with 217 for the week which was a 32% increase from a year ago! St Louis County, the county with the most home sales in the St Louis MSA had 435 sales, a slight increase above 432 a year ago.
New Contracts On Residential Listings – St Louis MSA
For the Week Ended June 13, 2020
Data Source: MARIS – Copyright 2020, MORE, REALTORS All Rights Reserved
There were 542 homes “flipped” in the St Louis metro area during the first quarter of 2020, or 8.5% of the total number of homes sold in the St Louis metro area during the quarter, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Solutions. This is an increase of 13.8% from the prior quarter and is a decrease of 2% from a year ago. The median gross profit was 52,900 a 60.8% gross ROI.
Definition of a “flipped” home…
For the purposes of this report, a flipped home is considered to be any home or condo that was sold during the first quarter of this year in an arms-length sale that had previously had an arms-length sale within the prior 12 months. 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 Flipping – 1st Quarter 2020
© 2019 – St Louis Real Estate News, all rights reserved
There were 4,4,83 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during April, an increase of 4.28% from a year ago when there were 4,299 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). However, the increase in new home construction activity was not shared equally around the St Louis area and, in fact, really only favored St Charles County and Jefferson County again.
Of the seven counties reported on by the St Louis HBA, 5 saw a decline in building permits from a year ago (the same 5 counties as last month) and, like last month, Lincoln County saw the largest decline at over 15%, and St Charles County was the big winner again where the number of new home building permits in March increased nearly 20% from the same month last year.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – April 2020
The St Louis real estate market slowed when the effects of COVID-19 hit the St Louis area in early March but after continuing at a slower pace for a few weeks has quickly shifted gears to a faster pace. The St Louis market has improved to the point that, for the 12-month period ended May 31, 2020, St Louis home sales were down just 1.84% from the prior 12-month period. The median price of homes sold during the past 12-months was $213,000, an increase of 6.55% from the prior period.
St Louis 5-County Core Market Home Sales and Prices
Past 12 Months vs Year Ago
(click on the table below for live report)
COVID-19 lingers on but the real estate market in St Louis has made a quick recovery from the negative impact it had on the market. The data supports the idea that home buyers are tired of waiting for everything to come back to “normal” (or whatever variation of normal the new normal is) and have been out looking at and buying homes. This is evidenced by the chart below which depicts showings of listings this year and compares each 7-day period with the year before. As you can see, showings this year (the orange line) we down, significantly from last year during the worst of the pandemic, but have rebounded to the point where last week’s showings topped the year before by over 12%!
St Louis Area Showings Of Listings
(click on chart for live, interactive chart)
While COVID-19 has not released it’s grip on us, it has eased the grip and certainly, this is true with regard to the St Louis real estate market. As I’ve written about recently, showings of listings have increased to the point they have outpaced the same time as last year and now, the number of new contracts on listings is just about there as well!
As the table below shows, the number of new contracts on residential listings in the last 7 days that have been reported is, for the St Louis MSA, down just 3% from the same time last year and for the St Louis County Core market, down just 6%. Jefferson County has actually seen sales that top the same period last year by 24%.
St Louis New Contracts On Residential Listings For The Past 7 Days
It’s no wonder home buyers are tripping over themselves and getting into bidding wars to buy a house as the supply of homes for sale is at or near historic lows. As our table below shows, there are currently 40 zip codes in the St Louis MSA with a one-month or less supply of homes for sale (7 of the zips have no homes for sale) and a total of 76 of the 127 (60%) zip codes within the St Louis MSA have a supply of homes for sale of 2 months or less.
This low inventory, along with low-interest rates and pent-up demand from the COVID-19 induced stay at home orders, is creating a real feeding frenzy of sorts for homebuyers in the St Louis market. For sellers, this is a dream come true, plenty of demand and little competition! Granted, this is not true in all areas and all price ranges, but for the most common prices ranges in the more popular areas it is very true.
Sellers should sell now!
If you are someone that has been thinking about selling, I would act on those thoughts now and take advantage of the current low-inventory conditions. While I don’t know that I agree, there are folks out there predicting that the market is going to get flooded with homes for sale shortly turning the tide on sellers. For me, I’ll believe that when I see it, but nonetheless, now is definitely a great time to sell.
Sell Your Home For The Highest Price In The Least Amount of Time! See how- STLSellersAdvantage.com
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Continue reading “40 Zip Codes In The St Louis MSA Have 1 Month Or Less Supply Of Homes For Sale“
There were 4,506 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during March, an increase of 4.55% from a year ago when there were 4,310 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). However, the increase in new home construction activity was not shared equally around the St Louis area and, in fact, really only favored St Charles County and Jefferson County.
Of the seven counties reported on by the St Louis HBA, 5 saw a decline in building permits from a year ago with Lincoln County seeing the biggest loss at over 25%, and St Charles County was the big winner where the number of new home building permits in March increased nearly 25% from the same month last year.
St Louis New Home Building Permits – March 2020
As the St Louis real estate market continues to distance itself from the effects of COVID-19 and the resulting stay at home orders and business shutdowns, I continue to see market activity that is encouraging. For example, as the chart below shows, for the most recent week, reported (through last Thursday) the showing activity on listings in St Louis and surrounding areas were at a level that is 3.9% higher than for the same period last year. This is a huge rebound since showings hit bottom in the middle of the lock-down on April 9th and fell to a level that was barely half of the year before.
St Louis Area Showings Of Listings
(click on chart for live, interactive chart)
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St Louis Area New Contracts On Residential Listings
Data source: MARIS – Copyright© 2020 St Louis Real Estate News, all rights reserved
Showing Activity For St Louis and Surrounding Market Areas
(click on the chart for a live, interactive chart)
