St Louis bank and government owned home sales are down as banks and government enterprises such as Fannie Mae, FHA, VA and Freddie Mac whittle down their inventory of foreclosed homes while, at the same time, new mortgage delinquencies and foreclosure rates continue to decline. While this is Continue Reading →
St Louis pending home sales in May hit the highest level we have seen in years with 2,558 pending homes sales during the month in the 5-county core market*, an increase of 8.9% from May 2014 when there were 2,348 pending home sales. Year to date this year, through the end of May, there have been 12,595 pending home sales, an increase of 7.8% from the same time last year. Continue Reading →
Further proof of just how “local” real estate is and how important it is for home buyers and sellers to have accurate, targeted, local data is the fact that today the St Louis Business Journal reported “home sales increased 17.9 percent year to date in the St. Louis metropolitan area, more than twice the national rate of 8.4 percent” which would if you are looking to buy a home, say in the City of St Louis, may influence your decision thinking it’s a hot selling area. Continue Reading →
We have been in the midst of a pretty crazy real estate market lately in St Louis with new listings in many areas and price ranges being subjected to a “feeding frenzy” by buyers. It is not uncommon at all today to have two or three showings taking place on a new listing at the same time with the total of first day showings easily getting into double digits and a signed contract before the end of the 2nd day on the market. Continue Reading →
During the 2nd quarter of this year, there was foreclosure activity on one out of every 887 housing units in Jefferson County, giving it the highest foreclosure rate of the main counties making up the St Louis real estate market, according to a report just released by RealtyTrac. Continue Reading →
The pending home sales index, published by the National Association of REALTORS® ,based upon the number of homes that went under contract but have not yet closed yet, hit 112.4 in April, a 3.4% increase from March and a 14% increase from a year ago marking the largest annual increase in almost 3 years (since September 2012) and the highest level for the index since hitting 112.5 in May 2006 during the height of the boom. Continue Reading →
The city of St Louis came in at the top of list of RealtyTrac’s “Top Buyer’s Markets”, just released this morning. For the report, RealtyTrac analyzed average sales prices and estimated market values at time of sale for homes and condos sold in April in 315 U.S. counties to come up with a list of the Top Seller’s Markets and the Top Buyer’s Markets. Continue Reading →
St Louis foreclosures increased in April from the month before in the St Louis area counties of St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin, were fairly level in St Louis County and declined almost 12 percent in the city of St Louis. For the 5 counties that make up the core of the St Louis real estate market, the median increase in foreclosure activity in April 2015 from the month before was, as the table below shows, 10.68%, and, compared with foreclosure activity from April 2014, the median increase in foreclosure activity was almost 30 percent, according to data released this morning by RealtyTrac. Continue Reading →
St Louis home sales, in the 5-county “core” St Louis market, increased 16.9 percent in March from the year before, with 2,589 homes sold in March 2015 up from 2,214 sold in March 2014. As the chart below shows, there was the normal “seasonal” dip during the winter months, but the St Louis real estate market has come out of winter strong!
St Louis home prices on the rise too!
As the chart below also illustrates, the median price of homes sold in St Louis has increased from a year ago as well. The median price of homes sold in Continue Reading →
Pending home sales in St Louis rose in February with 1,710 sales pending in the St Louis 5-county core market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin), an increase of 17 percent from 1,460 pending home sales the month before, however was a decrease of 11% from February 2014 when there were 1,917 pending home sales in the St Louis 5-county core market. Continue Reading →
RealtyTrac published a report earlier this week that prompted an article on Bloomberg Business with a headline of “U.S. Home Prices Are Surging 13 Times Faster Than Wages”. RealtyTrac’s report included a chart (below) showing several metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. where, over a recent two year period, home prices were outpacing wages and that “either wages are going to need to go up or (home) prices are going to need to at least flatten out and wait for wages to catch up”. Continue Reading →
St Louis home sales jumped in February to 1,633 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market (the city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin), an increase of almost 15 percent (14.8%) from February 2014 when there were 1,423 homes sold, and an increase of over 22 percent (22.3%) from the month before, according to the latest data available from MORE, REALTORS Continue Reading →
This week FNC, Inc., a large company that provides real estate market information to mortgage lenders across the country, published their FNC Residential Price Index™ report which showed St Louis home prices declined slightly in January from the month before (0.4%) and were also down slightly (0.7%) from a year ago. Continue Reading →
If you are like a lot of people and see St Louis foreclosures, or REO’s (real estate owned by banks and other lending institutions as a result of foreclosure) as a good opportunity to buy a residence for yourself or as an investment either for rental or for “flipping”, you best have cash and be prepared to “buck up” if you want to succeed! I say this because cash buyers continue to dominate the REO and foreclosure market with 61% of all REO and Foreclosure sales this year in St Louis being cash sales thus far. As the table below shows, while the number of foreclosure sales has declined this year from last year at the same time, the percentage of them going to cash buyers has not. Continue Reading →
Two zip codes in St Louis made RealtyTrac’s list of “Zips with the highest gross returns (from flipping property)” for 4th quarter, 2014. The 63139 zip code, which includes the Dog Town area of St Louis, came in number 2 on the list with an average gross return on investment of 163.9% and the 63116 zip code, which includes Tower Grove South, Holly Hills, Dutchtown South and Bevo, came in 9th on the list with an average gross return on investment of 127.7%. Continue Reading →
St Louis home sales slowed in January to 1,322 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market (the city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) which is a decline of over 36 percent (36.65%) from the month before, and a decline of almost 3 percent (2.94%) from a year ago, according to the latest data available from MORE, REALTORS. As the chart below shows, the median price of homes sold in St Louis in January was $144,498, down from $159,500 in December but up from a year ago when the median home Continue Reading →
The city of St Louis made the list of the top 50 markets to rent to Millenials, published by RealtyTrac. In determining the best markets in the U.S. for renting to millennial (most of whom are in their 20’s or early 30’s), RealtyTrac looked at rental markets where the gross annual yield on rentals was at least 9 percent, where Millenials make up more than 22 percent of the market (the national average) and where the Millenial population had increased at least 5% from 2007 through 2013. Continue Reading →
Pending home sales, those listings that have contracts pending but have not yet closed, declined in St Louis in December 3.2 percent to 1,621 pending home sales from 1,674 sales in December 2013. For the midwest region of the U.S. as a whole, pending home sales slipped a little in November (the latest month national data is available for) falling one-half of one percent from November 2013, according to the Pending Home Sales Index Report just released by the National Association of REALTORS®.
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St Louis home sales fell to 2,065 homes in November 2014 for the St Louis 5-County Core Market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin), a decline of 3.3% from from 2,136 homes sold in November 2013 Continue Reading →
St Louis home sales slipped in November to 1722 home sales for the 5-county core St Louis market (the city of St Louis and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) from 1808 home sales in November 2013, according to the latest data available from MORE, REALTORS. Home prices in St Louis went the opposite direction during the same period however, rising from a median price of $147,500 for homes sold in November 2013 to a median price of $156,000 for homes sold in November 2014, an increase of 5.8% for the year. Continue Reading →
Cash home sales’ percentage of overall home sales declined during the 3rd quarter of this year from the 2nd quarter in the city of St Louis as well as St Louis and St Charles County, according to data just released by RealtyTrac. As the table below shows, the counties of Jefferson and Franklin saw cash sales take a bigger share of their home sales during the same period.
Purchases of homes by institutional investors increased during the 3rd quarter from the quarter before in Franklin and Jefferson County as well as the City of St Louis and declined in St Continue Reading →
St Louis new home building permits issued in September increased by 6 percent from a year ago for the 5-county core area of St Louis (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin), according to data just released by the Home Builders Association of St. Louis & Eastern Missouri. On a year to date basis, as the table below shows, the city of St Louis is up 13 percent from the same period last year, St Louis county is up 2 percent and the rest of the counties are running behind last years numbers.
In spite of the fact that the St Louis housing market is improving, there are still St Louis neighborhoods that favor buyers or are buyers markets. The 15 top buyers markets in St. Louis can be found in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the area including within the city of St Louis as well as in the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin. As the table below shows, the hottest buyers market in St Louis as of today is Gray Summit with a Market Action Index of 20, according to the latest data available from MORE, REALTORS. Continue Reading →
The City of St Louis was at the top of a list that you don’t really want to be on, the “Top 50 Counties with the Highest Prevalence of Man-Made Environmental Hazards“, just released this morning by RealtyTrac. The city of St Louis scored a 87.2, more than triple the score of Philadelphia (27.8) which occupies the number 2 spot on the list.
In scoring locations for this list, RealtyTrac only looked at counties with a population of 100,000 or more and then ranked them based upon the % of bad air quality days, the number of Superfund sites Continue Reading →
The number of new home building permits in St Louis dropped in August 12 percent from July and were down 2 percent from August 2013, according to the latest date from the Home Builders Association for St Louis and Eastern Missouri. There were a total of 287 permits issued for the 5-county core market consisting of the city of St Louis and Counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin, down from 327 the month before and 292 a year ago.
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For the first time in a long time, there was an increase in St Louis Foreclosures with 497 foreclosure actions in August, equivalent to 1 foreclosure action for every 2,511 housing units, an increase of 2.47 percent from the month before. While up from the month before, St Louis Foreclosures in August 2014 were down 58.41% from August 2013. As the table below shows, St Charles County had a big decline in foreclosure activity in August and the city of St Louis a modest decline, but Jefferson County and Franklin County both saw increases in foreclosures over over 100% from Continue Reading →
In spite of improvements in the St Louis real estate market and many areas becoming Seller’s markets due to low inventory and high demand, there are sill neighborhoods in St Louis where the market favors buyers. The top ten buyer’s markets in St Louis, listed in the table below, are in a variety of locations with two areas within the city of St Louis, and the rest in Jefferson and Franklin county. Absent from the list are buyers markets in St Louis county and St Charles county.
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Flipping property in the St Louis area has paid off for investors over the past year provided they have stayed out of the City of St Louis. “Flipping” or a “Flip” is a term used today to describe when a property is bought and then re-sold within a short time period. In St Louis County, the 3rd quarter of 2013 and the 3rd quarter of 2014, there were 658 properties flipped at an average gross profit of nearly 25 percent (24.56%) , according to a newly released report from RealtyTrac. During the same period there were 203 properties flipped in Continue Reading →
St Louis Home Sales were down slightly in July 2014 (2.25%) from a year ago however St Louis home prices increased 3.3% during the same period, according the latest data available from MORE, REALTORS.
As the table below shows, St Charles County and Franklin County both saw an increase in home sales in July 2014 from July 2014 while the other 3 counties in the core market saw a decrease in home sales during the same period. Home prices increased in the counties of St Louis, St Charles and Jefferson and declined slightly in the City Continue Reading →
St Louis Condo sales have steadily grown over the past 3 years from 2,216 sales for the 12 month period ended June 30, 2011 to 3,141 sales for the 12 month period ended June 30, 2014, an increase of 41.8% in that 3 year period. I think this is the result of actually two things; one, the recovery of the St Louis housing market which we are in the midst of, as well as greater acceptance of condominiums for a residence by St Louisan’s.
During the same period, St Louis home sales, as the chart below illustrates, have increased as Continue Reading →