Median Price of Homes Sold in St Louis City/County In Past 12 Months Hits $185,000 – Sales Flat

The median price of homes sold in St Louis City and County combined during the 12 month period ended October 31, 2018 was $185,000 according to the STL Market Report™ from MORE™, REALTORS®.  As the STL Market Report™ below shows, this is an increase in the median price of condos sold of 5.11% from the prior 12-month period. During the most recent 12-month period, there were 16,841 homes sold in St Louis City and County combined, just 6 sales more than the prior 12-month period.  There is currently a 2.67 month supply of condos for sale in St Louis City and County combined and listings have been on the market a median time of 64 days.

STL Market Report – Homes – St Louis City and County Combined

(click on table to go to live report)

STL Market Report - St Louis City/County Combined

 

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St Louis City & County Home Sales Trend Downward Over Past 12 Months- Prices Trend Upward

Home sales and home prices in St Louis city and St Louis County during the 12-month period ending November 30, 2017, are trending in opposite directions.  Home sales, for these two areas combined, have, as the chart below reveals, declined 4.2% from 44,823 home sales for the 12 month period ended November 30, 2016 to 42,958 home sales for the period ended November 30, 2017.  The median price per foot for homes sold during these same periods however have increased 3.7% from $107 per foot for the period ended November 2016 to $111 per foot for the period ended November 30, 2017.

St Louis City/County Home Sales & Price Per Foot – (chart)

12-Month Period Ending 11/30/2016 vs

12-Month Period Ending 11/22/2016 No Distressed Sales

(click on chart for live data)St Louis City/County Home Sales & Price Per Foot - (chart)  12-Month Period Ending 11/30/2016 vs  12-Month Period Ending 11/22/2016 No Distressed Sales

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St Louis City & County Home Sales This Year On Track To Top Last Year – Prices & Inventory Up Slightly Also

Home sales in the city and county of St Louis this year have pretty consistently, from month to month, been at a pace roughly 5 percent higher than at the same time last year.  As our chart below illustrates, we began this year with 747 homes sold (not including distressed sales) in St Louis city and county, an increase of 5.2% from January 2016 when there were 710 homes sold.  As of the end of October, there were 12,824 homes sold this year, an increase of 5.6% from the same time last year when there were 12,145 in the city and county of St Louis.

Home Prices Rise Modestly In St Louis City & County…

As the chart and tables, below show, the price per foot that homes sold for (the most accurate way to compare prices) this year has with the exception of May, been higher than for the same period last year. For the past couple of months, the price per foot has been either side of 3% higher than the corresponding period last year.   As the YTD table for 2017 shows, the actual median price of homes sold this year, in the city and county of St Louis, has been $194,900, an increase of about 1% from last year’s median price of $192,900 for the same period.

Plenty of Homes For Sale in St Louis City and County…

Referring to the tables below again, you can see that, as of today, there is a 6.57 month supply of homes for sale (non-distressed) in St Louis city and county, putting the market into buyers market territory somewhat, and an increase of a little over 7 percent from the same time last year when there was a 6.13 month supply of homes for sale.

Why You SHOULD Be A Data Nerd, or at least, Pick One For An Agent!

Ok, I’ll admit it…I’m a data nerd!  I love analyzing the real estate market and trends.  I could sit for hours studying the market, computing prices, and spotting trends.  I also love teaching our agents to do the same as well as sharing the results I glean from the data with our agents, to help them stay informed, on top of the market and able to better serve their clients.  I also love educating consumers about the real estate market to equip them to make smart decisions when buying or selling real estate, or when choosing an agent.

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Why is this so important?  GIGO!  That’s why!

What in the world is GIGO? A computer science term which means, to quote Wikipedia: “(GIGO) is where flawed, or nonsense input data produces nonsense output or “garbage…..The principle also applies more generally to all analysis and logic, in that arguments are unsound if their premises are flawed.”

So, in a nutshell, if you, or your real estate agent is getting “flawed” or “nonsense” data, then the output, or result, will be “garbage”.  Considering that, for most normal folks, buying or selling a home is often the largest transaction they make, it’s worth avoiding making decisions about that transaction based on bad info.

This is why we work so hard at delivering the best St Louis area home sales, and prices data. I’ll now give you a couple of quick examples of how abundant bad data is out there and how it may differ from what I have here.

  • From a very popular national real estate search site: “The median home value in Saint Louis is $131,300. Saint Louis home values have gone up 18.3% over the past year
  • From a website that gives “neighborhood information”, the median home price in St Louis is currently $136,192.
  • From a trade association in the real estate industry…”While the median sales price (in the city and county of St Louis)  increased 7 percent from $160,000 in October 2016 to $171,000 this year”

Get the idea? Even what appears to be, or may, in fact, be, very credible sources of home price and market data for St Louis, can be very wrong.  None of this is intentional, but, instead, a result of there being “too much” information available today and, without going through some effort to sort through it, it can easily be GIGO data.

How does the GIGO data happen?

  • Much of the home price data you see quotee for St Louis is for the St Louis MSA, which includes 17 counties, 9 in Missouri and 8 in Illinois.
  • We clearly identify what data we are reporting, such as, in this article, data for the City and County of St Louis.
  • Most of the data sources are probably reporting data which includes distressed home sales (foreclosures, short sales, etc) which can, in some areas where there are a lot of them, such as the city of St Louis, dramatically affect home prices.
  • We often filter out distressed sales, particularly when reporting data for an area where they can impact the data significantly (like in the city and county of St Louis) and then clearly identify what the data represents..
  • “Home prices” is generally the term used, but often times, the data reported actually combines condo prices with home prices.  Condo’s sell for different prices, and appreciate and different rates, than homes, so this can skew the data as well.  If we report “home prices” we have filtered out condo sales.

In addition to all of the above, there are many other reasons why it is hard to find accurate and timely home price and sales information for the St Louis area.  The large number of municipalities St Louis county is chopped up into is part of it, as is the fact that the city of St Louis is not within St Louis County and that the REALTOR MLS here requires subdivision names to be entered manually, giving rise to errors and difficulty in getting good subdivision level home price and sales data.

This is why at our firm, MORE, REALTORS, we have worked so hard and spent so much time and money developing our own proprietary software to assure our agents, and their clients, have access to, the most accurate and timely, St Louis area home price and sales data possible.

St Louis City/County YTD Home Sales & Price Per Foot – (chart)

11/22/2017 vs 11/22/2016 No Distressed Sales

St Louis City/County YTD Home Sales & Price Per Foot - (chart)

St Louis City/County YTD 2017 (through 11/22)

St Louis City/County YTD 2017 (through 11/22)

St Louis City/County YTD 2016 (through 11/22)

St Louis City/County YTD 2016 (through 11/22)

St Louis City & County See Home Sales Fall In September While Prices Spike

The city and county of St Louis, collectively, accounted for nearly two-thirds of the home sales in the St Louis core-market during the past 12 months. There were 16,790 homes sold in the city and county of St Louis during the period October 1, 2016, through September 30, 2017, 61.0% of the 27,517 total number of homes sold in the 5-County Core St Louis real estate market during the period.

Home prices spike in St Louis City/County…

The median price of homes sold during the 12-month period ending September 30, 2017, was $174,900, a rather modest, but sustainable, 2.94% from the prior 12 month period when the median price was $169,900 (see table below).  The number of homes sold during this period increased 4.31% to 16,790 homes from 16,097 during the prior 12-month period.

However, as our monthly chart below the table indicates, home prices for sales that closed during September spiked significantly to a median sold price of $185,000, a whopping month-over-month increase of 4.3% from $177,375 during August.  During September, the number of homes sold in the city and county of St Louis tumbled 17.8 percent from 1,662 in August to 1,366 homes sold in September.

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Remember, real estate is very seasonal!

As I have said many times, real estate is very seasonal so we cannot read much into month-over-month numbers.  However, as our chart below shows, over the past 5 years, St Louis home prices have peaked in June or July, then rescinded afterward.  Home sales generally follow suit, peaking around June and then declining afterward.  Last year we saw an uptick in home sales and prices (1% and 3.3% respectively) in August and then both declined afterward.

Is there a price correction coming in St Louis city and county?

What makes this year standout is September saw the median home price increase 4.3% to $185,000 from $177,375 the month before while home sales, on the other hand, fell 17.8% from the month before.  In addition, if you look at the “On Market Listing Data” below our chart, you will see the median price of active listings is even higher, at $195,900.

A couple of other things that stand out to me that make me believe we are going to see a price correction coming in St Louis city and county are:

  • There is currently a 4.34 month supply of homes for sale – while, historically this is not bad, compared with the more recent past, it’s high.  Also, it’s growing…as the first table below shows, there was just a 3.04 month supply as of September 30th, so the supply has increased by 1.3 months in the 24 days since.
  • The price per foot (best way to look at home prices) that homes sold during the past 12 months was $124 however, in September, when prices peaked, it jumped to $128/foot.  Active listings in October, are still at $128/foot…looks like wishful thinking on the part of sellers and listing agents to me.

St Louis City and County Home Prices and Sales – Oct 2016 Through Sept 2017 (Table)St Louis City and County Home Prices and Sales - Oct 2016 Through Sept 2017 (Table)

St Louis City and County Home Prices and Sales – Past 5 Years (Chart)

St Louis City and County Home Prices and Sales - Past 5 Years (Chart)

The Importance Of Accurate Home Price Data And The Danger Of Bad Data

Ok, I’ll admit it, I know I’m sort of a big data nerd and not everyone is, so I may be in the minority when it comes to the attention I give, and time I devote, to market data, stats, trends and the like.  However, while not everyone wants to study this stuff, anyone in the market to buy or sell real estate either needs to be up to date on what is going on in the market in terms of price (and the other stuff I mentioned) or be represented by a real estate agent that is.  Otherwise, without this information or, worse yet, with bad information, home buyers and sellers can make some really bad decisions.

There is a lot of “bad” data out there and it can hurt you!

When I started in the real estate business, way back in 1979 and the age of 18, it was very hard to get much data on home prices, sales, etc, heck, it wasn’t even easy to find out what was listed for sale.  Today, largely a result of the internet, things are much different.  There is plenty of data and information available to home buyers and sellers today and it’s easy to find. The hard part today isn’t getting the data and information, it’s getting good, accurate and relevant data and information.  You don’t have to spend much time online, whether on social media sites, real estate websites or even “news” sites, to discover all sorts of inaccurate, incomplete, dated, useless and conflicting data and information.  For example, in the past week, I saw reports, even from people in the real estate profession in St Louis, indicating home prices declined last month from a year ago to the tune of about 3% or so, but I don’t believe that is the case.  Bear with me and keep reading and you will see why I say this as well as what I think is accurate with regard to St Louis home prices.

Usually the source means well and the data is believed to be accurate, but….

With regard to real estate, I think most of the data published on real estate sites, social media sites, etc by real estate agents as well as others in the industry, is believed by the person putting it out there to be accurate, the problem is it often is not. The problem is, without really digging into the source of the data, or examining what criteria was used to compile the data or report, people are often passing along information they are just assuming to be accurate but often is not.

So, where can you find good, accurate and relevant information and data on the St Louis real estate market?

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Search St Louis Homes For Sale HERE
See ALL Homes That Will Be Open In St Louis This Weekend
Get Home Prices and Sale Charts For ANY Area- STLMarketCharts.com
Get Home Prices and Sale Tables and Data For ANY Area- STLMarketReports.com
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