Are you one of those people like me that didn’t go out and fight the crowds on Black Friday in search of deals and instead waited until today to catch the Cyber Monday deals online from the comfort of your home or office? Or perhaps you were out Friday shopping and now you are back at it online? In any event, don’t forget that Cyber Monday deals come 7 days a week this time of the year in real estate! That’s right! Like I discussed here on Black Friday, some of the best deals of the year on St Louis real estate occur from now until the end of the year.
As the STL Market Chart (exclusively provided by MORE, REALTORS) below illustrates, in the St Louis 5-County Core market home prices (the red line) peaked in July and, with the exception of a little uptick in August, have trended downward since reaching the lowest point since April of this year. St Louis home sales (the pink line) have shown pretty much the same result, hitting the lowest level in November since February.
It shouldn’t be a surprise…
What is happening in the St Louis real estate market presently does not come as a surprise because home sales are very seasonal and, the seasonal fluctuation we are seeing now, happens every year. This is why I chose a 25-month chart below, so you can see the last year was pretty much the same pattern. also, I wanted to show that prices continued to fall last year until hitting bottom in February of this year and I would expect a similar pattern this year. That does not mean however that you want to wait until February to buy as the prices shown are based upon closed deals. The typical real estate transaction takes 4-6 weeks to close, so those “February” home prices were from sales transactions that originated in December and January for the most part. Therefore, from now until the end of the year the best time to buy a home in St Louis from a value standpoint!
“Cyber Monday” St Louis Home Prices
(click on chart for live, interactive chart)
