Covid-19 - St Louis Real Estate News

Missouri State Assistance for Housing Relief (SAFHR) Can Help Homeowners Struggling To Make Their Payments

By Dennis Norman, on March 24th, 2023

The State of Missouri received $138 million from the U.S. Treasury’s Homeowners Assistance Fund (HAF) and are using those funds to help qualified homeowners that are struggling to make their house payments. Missouri State Assistance for Housing Relief (SAFHR) is responsible for paying out these funds to help individual homeowners.

Who is eligible for assistance from SAFHR?

According to the SAFHR program guidelines, to qualify for SAFHR for Homeowners assistance, an individual or household must:

Earn no more than 150% of the area median income for the region where the property is located, as set forth in the HUD income Continue Reading →

New Home Construction In Midwest During Increased During Past 12 Months

By Dennis Norman, on December 21st, 2022

Even though the number of new home building permits in the St Louis area has been on the decline, they’re been on the increase in the midwest region of which St Louis is a part. As the chart below illustrates, for the 12-month period ended last month, there are been 2,850 building permits issued for new privately-owned housing units in the midwest region of the U.S. an increase of 3.6% from he prior 12-month period when there were 2,746 permits issued. For just the month of November 2022, there were 197 permits, down nearly 8% from November 2021 when 214 Continue Reading →

Home Builder Sentiment Falls Every Month During 2022 Reaching Lowest Level Since Beginning of COVID

By Dennis Norman, on December 19th, 2022

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) released their NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report for December 2022 and, not surprisingly, it shows the builders are continuing to lose confidence in the market. In fact, builder sentiment has dropped every month during 2022, ending the year at an index value of 31, the lowest seen since the onslaught of COVID-19 in April 2020.

Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis New Homes For Sale NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) / Builder Sentiment Chart

(click on chart for live, interactive chart)

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Showings On St Louis Listings Drop Below To Lowest Levels Of The Year

By Dennis Norman, on September 26th, 2022

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 →

National Headlines Say Homebuyers Canceling Deals At Highest Rate Since Start of Covid…Is this true in St Louis?

By Dennis Norman, on July 15th, 2022

If you’re heard it once, you’ve likely heard it a hundred times, “all real estate is local”. This is why you can’t put too much faith in national news or data if you are interested in buying or selling a home in St Louis. This is also why at MORE, REALTORS®, we put so much time, effort and money into producing the best and most accurate local data we can. We think it’s important to bring the data and information down to the local level.

“Homebuyers are canceling deals at highest rate since start of COVID” was the headline earlier Continue Reading →

The Coming Recession and Its Potential Affect on St Louis Home Prices

By Dennis Norman, on July 7th, 2022

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 →

Showings Of St Louis Listings Fall To Levels Below January

By Dennis Norman, on July 6th, 2022

Federal Court Overturns the CDC Ordered Eviction Moratorium

By Dennis Norman, on May 5th, 2021

UPDATE: After the decision by to overturn the eviction moratorium was decided upon by Judge Dabney L. Friedrich on May 5th, at 6:54pm that evening the U.S. Government filed a notice of appeal as well as a motion for an emergency stay to not have the eviction moratorium lifted until after the appeal. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich through a Minute Order, granted the stay, thereby leaving the eviction moratorium in place for now but noting that “This Minute Order should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of the defendants’ motion.” The judge allowed the Continue Reading →

CFPB Proposes Banning Foreclosures Through The End Of This Year

By Dennis Norman, on April 7th, 2021

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) earlier this week proposed rule changes that would help prevent “avoidable foreclosures” that will come about when the current foreclosure ban expires June 30th. According to the CFPB, nearly 3 million homeowners are delinquent on their mortgages as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the economic issues that have come about as a result.

The CFPB’s proposed rule changes include:

Require a pre-foreclosure review period that would generally prohibit loan servicers from starting foreclosure until after December 31, 2021 on loans secured by a borrower’s principal residence. Permit loan servicers to Continue Reading →

COVID-19 Pandemic Driven Serious Mortgage Delinquencies To Highest Levels Since The Great Recession

By Dennis Norman, on March 4th, 2021

According to a report just released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), titled “Housing insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic“, there are over 2 million homeowners that have fallen behind at least three months on their mortgage payments. This represents a 250% increase from pre-Covid-19 levels and is now at a level we haven’t seen since the height of the Great Recession in 2010.

Homeowners with an FHA mortgage delinquency rates double rate for all loans:

As the chart below shows, homeowners with an FHA mortgage hit a serious mortgage delinquency rate of 10.8% during the 3rd quarter of 2020, Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales Trending Upward Aggressively

By Dennis Norman, on January 17th, 2021

Most residential real estate data is published based upon closed deals meaning the transaction is already in the past and it’s activity may not be reflective of the current market. This is why at MORE, REALTORS® we developed our leading indicators report that I shared a few days ago and also why we developed a home sale trends chart. The home sales trend chart, such as the one shown below for the St Louis 5-County Core real estate market, is still based upon closed sales however each monthly data point represents the total of the closed sales in the proceeding Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales And Prices Both Up About 8 Percent in 2020 From 2019

By Dennis Norman, on January 14th, 2021

In spite of the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, stay at home orders, a shaky economy and a fair amount of social unrest, 2020 still managed to be a good year for residential real estate! As the STL Market Report shows (available exclusively from MORE, REALTORS®), in the 5-County Core St Louis market there were 28,131 homes sold during 2020, an increase of 8.27% from 2019 when there were just 25,982 homes sold. The median price of homes sold in 2020 in this St Louis market was $232,000, an increase of 7.93% from 2019 when the median price was $214,950.

Continue Reading →

Rental Income Rebounding Somewhat After Taking a Dive

By Dennis Norman, on January 12th, 2021

As a result of the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, as well as the impact of eviction moratoriums and the like, residential rental income for the apartment sector in the U.S. took a nose dive during the 2nd quarter of 2020. As the chart below shows, the total revenue for businesses from Rental and Leasing, dropped to $156 Billion during the 2nd quarter of last year, a decline of 16% from the quarter before when the total revenue was nearly $186 Billion. During the 3rd quarter however, rental revenue rebounded to nearly $180 Billion.

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Total Revenue For Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales – No end in sight?

By Dennis Norman, on November 29th, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

CDC Issues Order Halting Residential Evictions Through Year-End

By Dennis Norman, on September 2nd, 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 Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales Trending Downward Last 12-Months- Not So In St Charles and Jefferson County

By Dennis Norman, on August 21st, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

Percentage of Underwater Homeowners In St Louis Drops To Lowest Level in Over 7 Years

By Dennis Norman, on August 6th, 2020

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.

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Home Sales Data In St Louis Reveals The Impact Of COVID-19

By Dennis Norman, on July 23rd, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

Have Home Prices Increased Too Much Too Fast? Is A Correction Coming?

By Dennis Norman, on July 2nd, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

New Sales Of Listings Last Week In St Charles County Up Over Thirty Percent From Last Year

By Dennis Norman, on June 19th, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

St Louis Housing Market Stays Steady In Spite of COVID-19

By Dennis Norman, on June 9th, 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.

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St Louis 5-County Core Market Home Sales and Continue Reading →

Showings Of Listings In St Louis Last Week Over 12 Percent Higher Than Year Ago

By Dennis Norman, on May 30th, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

New Sales Of Residential Listings In St Louis In Past 7 Days Almost Back To Last Years Numbers

By Dennis Norman, on May 26th, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

40 Zip Codes In The St Louis MSA Have 1 Month Or Less Supply Of Homes For Sale

By Dennis Norman, on May 21st, 2020

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 Continue Reading →

More Showings of Listings In St Louis Last Week Than Year Ago

By Dennis Norman, on May 16th, 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 Continue Reading →

St Louis Real Estate Market Update VIDEO – May 2020

By Dennis Norman, on May 14th, 2020

The St Louis real estate market continues to be on the upswing and recovering from the impact of COVID-19. The pandemic did slow the St Louis real estate market down for a while but it appears to be recovering quite quickly. Get all of this and more in this month’s update. Interest rates, the “cherry on top”. In case the market rebound isn’t enough, mortgage interest rates are at near historic lows making now a great time, and an affordable time, to buy a house if you are in a position to do so. [xyz-ips snippet=”Market-Update-Video-Package”] [xyz-ips snippet=”Seller-Resources—Listing-Targeted”] Continue Reading →

St Louis Real Estate Market Continues To Rebound From The “COVID-19 Effect”

By Dennis Norman, on May 13th, 2020

As the St Louis area slowly moves toward starting to come back to life, so to speak, the St Louis real estate market continues to heat up! After getting a gut punch from the COVID-19 pandemic, which I now refer to as “The COVID-19 effect”, the St Louis market has been steadily making a come back. As the table below shows, the total number of new sales of residential listings last week for the St Louis MSA as a whole was down just 6% from the same time last year, and down just 10% for the 5-County core St Louis Continue Reading →

We’re Back! (Showings that is…)

By Dennis Norman, on May 9th, 2020

I may be jumping the gun just a little, but showing activity on residential listings during the past week is just about back to where it was this time last year when there wasn’t a COVID-19 pandemic! As the chart below illustrates, the weekly average for showings through May 8th is just down a little over 2% from the same time last year and is up 40% from the first week of January this year.

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Showing Activity For St Louis and Surrounding Market Areas

(click on the chart for a live, interactive chart)

Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales YTD On Pace With Last Year In Spite of COVID-19

By Dennis Norman, on May 8th, 2020

Through the end of April, there have been 7,146 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core Market, nearly exactly the same as last year when there were 7,153 homes sold. In spite of the challenges caused by Covid-19, including the stay at home orders, over the past 7 weeks, the residential real estate market has managed to fare ok.

The trend is not looking so good though…

One thing to keep in mind is the date I just referenced is somewhat a historical look at the market since we are talking about closings of sales and not new sales. Continue Reading →

St Louis New Listings Down Nearly Double What Sales Are From Last Year

By Dennis Norman, on May 3rd, 2020

Prior to COVID-19, there had already been a shortage of residential listings for sale in many areas and price ranges through St Louis going back a couple of years. However, the problem may be getting worse as we are continuing to see new sales of residential listings in St Louis picking up the pace to the point that they are down just 16% from the same time a year ago but, new listings in the St Louis MSA are down 30% from the same time a year ago.

Since we started with a low inventory and now have the sales Continue Reading →