Monthly, Fannie Mae surveys consumers to gauge their sentiment toward whether it’s a good time to buy or sell a home and publishes the result in their Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI). As the chart below illustrates, in the most recent survey, which was just released, the HPSI index was at 60.8, the lowest level in nearly 11 years. No doubt the higher interest rates and softening economy are taking their toll on homebuyer’s optimism about the prospects of buying a home in the current market. This marks the seventh-consecutive monthly decline in the index and the first time since Continue Reading →
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As the infographic below illustrates, the time active listings in St Louis have been on the market is much greater than the time it took homes that closed last month to sell. In addition, a much greater percentage of the current active listings have reduced their asking prices versus the sales that closed last month. The most dramatic increase in days on the market was in St Charles County. Active listings in St Charles County have been on the market a median time of 38 days, almost 5 times as long as the sales that closed in September where the Continue Reading → Yesterday, Fannie Mae released their October housing forecast in which they forecast, among other things, where home sales and prices are headed. The report incudes a forecast for next year, which included: Home prices in 2023 to decline 1.5% from 2022 Home sales to finish 2022 down nearly 18% from last year and drop another 22% in 2023 New home construction to end 2022 down 3.6% from last year and drop another 25% in 2023. Mortgage Interest Rates will continue to rise the rest of these year, ending the year at 6.7% and then will ease back to 6.4% in Continue Reading → As the STL Real Estate Trends report below shows, as of last week, 43% of the active listings in the St Louis 5-County core market have a current asking price that is lower than the initial asking price. This is more than a 100% increase from the same week last year when only 20% of the listings had a reduced asking price. Franklin County saw the biggest increase in price reductions on listings from last year with an increase from 14% to 47%. Franklin County also has the highest percentage of active listings with a reduced price and St Charles Continue Reading → Below is our St Louis Real Estate Market Report for September 2022 for the City and County of St Louis combined. You can access the full infographic, containing data for St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin Counties as well by clicking on the image below. Worth noting and remembering is not all data is created equally nor is all of what you see reported accurate. Given the challenging and rapidly changing economic times we are in which are having an direct impact on the St Louis housing and real estate market, now, almost more than ever, you need to be sure Continue Reading → Click on the image below to see the Infographic A little over two weeks ago I wrote my most recent article addressing St Louis home prices titled “Will St Louis Home Prices Decline?” in which my short answer was “yes”, but kind of tongue in cheek and based upon the seasonality of home prices, but my longer answer was more vague. I mentioned that there certainly is a correction coming but pointed out that there are so many variables that will affect prices that it is hard to say to what extent this correction will be. While this is still true, a lot has happened in the short time Continue Reading → There are many headlines out there talking about home sales down 20% from last year on a national level but here in St Louis we are not seeing as large of a decline in home sales. As the chart below shows, for the 12-month period ended August 31, 2022, there were 27,891 homes sold in the St Louis 5-county core market, which as the trend line (dark green) depicts is a declining trend we’ve seen for the past 11 months now. This 12-month trend is the lowest trend since September 2020 when there were 27,572 homes sold in the prior Continue Reading → Today, the interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 7.08% marking the first time in over 20-years the rate has gone above 7%. Historically speaking, as the 2nd chart shows, this is not that high of an interest rate and, in fact, lower than the median rate over the past 50 years, however, it’s a very high rate based upon the the recent past. The affect of interest rates on home prices… Interest rates just began increasing in the past few months, rising above the 4% level in February, so it will take time to see the impact of Continue Reading → The short answer is yes. They decline every year as we head into winter due to the seasonal nature of the business. If you look at the first chart below which depicts the median price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-County core market since 1998, you will notice a very consistent pattern of prices rising in the spring and summer, then declining in the fall and winter. For the most part, the other pattern you will see is that the peak each spring is higher than the spring before and the bottom each winter is higher than the Continue Reading → The 12-month home sales trend in the St Louis 5-county core market declined in August to 27,840 homes sold in the 5-county area during the prior 12-months, marking the lowest 12-month sales number since September 2020. As the chart below illustrates, the 12-month home sales trend in St Louis has declined now for 11-months in a row landing just slightly higher than the 12-months sales of 27,573 for September 2020. The St Louis home sales trend is still higher than any period after August 2006 and prior to September 2020… At the current level, the St Louis home sales trend Continue Reading → There have been 21,164 homes sold in the St Louis Metro area during the first 7-months of this year which, as the STL Market Chart below illustrates, is a decline of 10.7% from the same time last year when there were 23,709 homes sold. 2022 home sales fairly consistent with 4 out of 5 prior years… As I stated above, St Louis YTD home sales are lagging behind last year however, last years sales appear to be the market peak and the difference, as shown below, between current YTD sales and the years prior to last year is not as Continue Reading → We continue to see more price reductions on listings, or, as some agents prefer to refer to them as “price improvements”, throughout the St Louis area. As the infographic below depicts, as of today one-third of the active listings in the St Louis 5-County core market have a current asking price that is below their original price. Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis Upcoming OPEN HOUSES Continue Reading → Apparently a lot of consumers are concerned about the housing market crashing or at least concerned enough to be online searching for answers. According to Google Trends the search phrase “Will The Housing Market Crash?” has hit it’s 5-year peak in terms of interest level during the last 4-5 months. In addition, according to Google Adwords tools, there are 10,000 – 100,000 searches for month for the phrase “Will The Housing Market Crash?” and 100,000 – 1,000, 000 monthly searches for “housing market crash“. Will there actually be a housing market crash in St Louis? I guess first we should Continue Reading → According to the latest data from HUD and the US Census Bureau, there is a 9.3 month supply of new homes for sale in the U.S. as of June, 2022. As the chart below illustrates, this is the largest supply of new homes for sale since May 2010 when there was also a 9.3 month supply. It wasn’t that long ago, August 2020 to be exact, when the supply hit a record low level of 3.3 months. St Louis New Home Supply is a little lower… It’s a little hard to pinpoint the new home supply in St Louis for Continue Reading → Price reductions are quickly showing up more and more on real estate listings in the St Louis area. As the Infograph below illustrates, 31% of the current active listings in St Louis have had at least one price reduction. Since the price homes sell at isn’t known until closing and a home sale typically takes 4 to 6 weeks to close, the actual sold prices won’t reflect these price reductions for a while. For example, in the past 30 days (through today) there have been 2,381 closings of home sales in the 5-county St Louis core market at a median Continue Reading → Ever heard the expression “It’s not if, but when..”? That is something that I’ve heard for a while now about a recession. With everything that has happened to our economy including rising interest rates, rising inflation, the government printing more and more currency and running up greater debt, it seemed inevitable we would see a recession. To officially be in a recession, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has to fall for two successive quarters. For the first quarter of this year, GDP declined at an annual rate of 1.6%. The second quarter GDP numbers won’t be released until later this Continue Reading → It’s no secret that the real estate market slows down in the winter and typically nearly screeches to a halt from shortly before Christmas to shortly after New Years. Therefore, when tracking showing activity in the St Louis area, the first week of January of each year is used as the base, or “0” value and then each rolling 7-day period afterward is compared to that first week. As the chart below shows, in 2020 and 2021 all weekly averages of showing activity were above the baseline of January until getting close to Thanksgiving, with the one exception being late Continue Reading → Price reduction, what’s that? All we seem to have heard about the last couple of years with regard to home prices is how much OVER the list price buyers were having to pay in order to buy a home. So, to be talking about price reductions today seems odd. However, as the infographic below illustrates, there have been listings with price reductions over the past couple of years, it’s just the current level of them is higher than we have seen in a while. Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis Upcoming OPEN HOUSES Continue Reading → For the first three weeks of June there were 1,475 new listings of homes for sale in the St Louis 5-county core market, according to the STL Real Estate Trends Report from MORE, REALTORS®. During the same period, there were 1,194 new contracts written on homes for sale resulting in a new listing to new contract ratio of 1.25. This ratio of listings to new sales is higher than it was 3 weeks ago when I shared the last update from the STL Real Estate Trends report and it was 1.05 at that time for the period reported which was Continue Reading → 
After over 40 years in the real estate business in St Louis I’ve seen many times just how fast a good, or even great housing market can turn sour as well as the other way around. Two years ago, economic conditions relevant to the housing market included: Interest rates in the 3’s Inflation rate under 2% The money supply increasing at a historically normal rate A steady and robust St Louis housing market Today, the above conditions are: Interest rates in the 6.25% – 6.5% range with the threat of increasing Inflation rate approaching 9% The money supply increasing nearly Continue Reading → The bond market had one of the worst days in history yesterday resulting in mortgage interest rates on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage hitting 6.0% and above. This is the highest rates have been since November 20, 2008 when the mortgage interest rates were 6.04%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey®. Is there a silver-lining to the higher interest rates? Given that the reason for the higher interest rates has to do with our high inflation rates and declining economic conditions, it’s hard to find much positive to say about what is happening. Having said that, the one Continue Reading → There have been 9,645 homes sold in the St Louis 5-county core market during the first 5-months of this year which, as the STL Market Chart below illustrates, is a decline of 8.8% from the same time last year when there were 10,579 homes sold. 2022 home sales outpacing 2020… While this years St Louis home sales are lagging behind last years, as the chart below also shows, 2022 YTD home sales is 2.8% higher than in 2020 when there were 9,382 YTD home sales. $1 Million+ home sales going strong… The bottom chart shows there have been 189 one-million Continue Reading → With the bidding wars we’ve seen on listings resulting in sold prices that exceed the asking price in St Louis over the past couple of years, it’s hard to imagine that home values could be lower today than a year ago. Now, before you call me crazy, I’m not saying that St Louis homes are SELLING for LESS now than a year ago. As our STL Market Chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-county core market was $254,950 in May 2021 and $270,000 last month, for an increase in sales price of 5.9%. Continue Reading → There were 5,138 building permits issued for new single-family homes in the St Louis area during the 12-month period ended April 30, 2022, a decrease of 9.69% from the same period a year ago when there were 5,138 permits issued, according to the latest data from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri (St Louis HBA). Four of the seven counties covered in the report saw a double-digit decrease in building permits from the same period a year ago. Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis New Homes For Sale St Louis New Home Continue Reading → Given the low-inventory of homes for sale that has existed for some time now, it may be hard to believe my next statement, but the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD show that there is currently a 9-month supply of newly constructed homes in the U.S. As the chart below illustrates, this is the highest level the supply of new homes in the U.S. has reached since May 2010 when there was a 9.3 month supply. The months supply of depicted below is calculated as the ratio of new homes for sale to the number of new Continue Reading → The pending home sales index from the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) was released showing the midwest region as the only region that had an increase from March to April. According to the NAR report below, the pending home sales index for the midwest increased 6.6% from March to April while declining 3.9% for the nation as a whole. As the table below shows, all while all four regions in the U.S. saw a decline in the pending home sales index from a year ago, the midwest fared the best again showing only a 2.8% decline while the other regions Continue Reading → For the first three weeks of May there were 2,115 new listings of homes for sale in the St Louis 5-county core market, according to the STL Real Estate Trends Report from MORE, REALTORS®. During the same period, there were 2,019 new contracts written on homes for sale resulting in a new listing to new contract ratio of 1.05. This is pretty consistent with the recent trend with new listings slightly outpacing new sales. As the tables at the bottom show, for April there were 3,470 new listings and 3,269 new contracts written for a new listing to new contract Continue Reading → There have been a lot of reports over the past month about rising interest rates (mortgage rates on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 5.27% last week) as well as rising inflation rates (8.5% in March) and the effect these things will have on the housing market. It’s no doubt they will have some affect on home prices and sales and I have been watching the data on St Louis home prices and sales closely and so far there does not appear to be much impact. St Louis home sales increase in April from March… There are two ways we analyze Continue Reading → Last week there were 551 new contracts written for the sale of listings in the St Louis 5-county core market down over thirty-six percent (31.3%) from the week before when there were 802 new contracts written, according to the STL Real Estate Trends Report, exclusively available from MORE, REALTORS®. The new sales activity last week was down even more (nearly 36%) from the same week a year ago when there were 851 new contracts written on listings. There is no doubt this is the result of mortgage interest rates which have nearly doubled in the last 15 months. New listings Continue Reading → |
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