By Dennis Norman, on April 11th, 2017
The supply of homes for sale in St Louis continues to fall making it even more of a challenge for the home buyers out there while making it pretty easy on sellers. For the past couple of years we have seen homes, that were properly priced and marketed correctly, sell often on the first day, or within the fist few days, of coming on the market for sale. In fact, more and more it’s become common for homes to sell before actually even hitting the market officially. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 31st, 2017
It seems almost crazy to even throw out the idea of an adjustment in St Louis home prices or, perhaps even, any sort of slow down in the rate of home price appreciation given that the inventory of homes for sale is so low in so many parts of the St Louis area, however, maybe it’s something to look at. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 30th, 2017
New home sales in St Louis declined in 2016 after increasing during the prior two years, for both the entire St Louis MSA as a whole as well as the St Louis 5-County Core Market. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 20th, 2017
The median price of homes sold in the St Louis core housing market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) was $179,900 for the past 12 months, an increase of 5.2% from the prior 12 month period when the median price of St Louis homes sold was $171,000. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 20th, 2017
There just aren’t enough homes for sale in many price ranges! This month, like many months before, you will see that all five counties in the St Louis core market (city of St Louis and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) all have less than a 6 month supply of homes for sale (a few less than half of that), so it remains a sellers market in many areas! While the market is doing well, you will notice the trend over the past 24 months, as I describe in the video is down a little in terms of number of homes sales which is due simply the lack of homes available for sale. There doesn’t appear to be a shortage of buyers at this point, just a shortage of sellers. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 9th, 2017
St Louis is known as an affordable place to live so it is not surprising that there is a fairly robust housing market for affordable and moderate priced homes. When it comes to luxury homes in St Louis however ($500,000 and above for the sake of discussion here), the market is much cooler. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 7th, 2017
Last year was a good year for the St Louis real estate market and, thus far, 2017 is off to a pretty good start in St Louis as well! As the chart and tables below illustrates, home prices in the St Louis area have been trending upward over the past couple of years and sales are holding pretty steady. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 19th, 2017
Investors that rental property may find their best returns, relative to the price of the homes they buy, in the City of St Louis, according to some county-level rental data compiled by MORE, REALTORS. As the tables below illustrate, over the past 12 months the median price of homes sold in the City of St Louis was $106.57 per square foot and the median annualized price per foot homes lease for was $11.04 which works out to a gross annual return on investment of 10.4%, the highest of the four St Louis area counties we looked at. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 16th, 2017
The ranch-style home has been around a long time with it’s origin going back to 1920’s but this style of home became extremely popular in the 1940’s carrying through the 1970’s. Ranch-style homes are normally much wider than deep and feature open floor plans with a casual style. Over time, as incomes increased, as did ground cost making the rather large footprint of a ranch more expensive since it needed a larger not to accommodate it, 1.5 and 2-story homes became increasingly popular. Recently, it seems there has been somewhat of a resurgence in terms of interest in ranch-style homes Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 6th, 2017
The median price of homes sold in Franklin County during the most recent 12 months was $146,000, an increase of 9.57% from the prior 12 month period when the median price was $133,250 marking the highest year over year increase of any of the St Louis area counties. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 30th, 2017
Most Feel Trump Will Be Good For Housing Market in 2017 The survey also revealed that 52 percent of Americans believe the housing market will do better under the Trump administration. When it comes to the millennial generation, 59 percent of that generation feel the Trump administration will be good for the housing market. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 21st, 2017
Where do you get the most bang for your buck when it comes to remodeling or making improvements to your home? Homeowners make many improvements and upgrades to their home simply because they want the added enjoyment or comfort they receive as a result, however, other homeowners, particularly those contemplating a move in the future, also focus on the investment aspect of the improvement. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 20th, 2017
When I first got in the real estate business in 1979 buying foreclosed property was something pretty well limited to speculators at the time. People like the broker I started with, and what I became a few years later, that bought property for cash, as-is generally to fix up and resell. Foreclosures, and how to buy them, were a mystery at the time, not only to the general public but to many in the real estate business as well. This is what gave us speculators an edge…we knew how to get the information on foreclosures and how the process worked. Ditto for tax sales and sheriff sales and short sales were something that didn’t even exist at the time. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 13th, 2017
St Louis home sales during 2016 hit the highest level in years! Home prices rose as well while the inventory of homes for sale remained low during the year. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 10th, 2017
As I have reported over the past couple of days, the St Louis MSA as well as all of the counties that make up the St Louis, Missouri house market, saw an increase in home sales and prices during 2016 from the year before. But which county fared the best during 2016, seeing the highest increase in the median price of homes sold as well as the biggest increase in the number of homes sold? Well, at the top of the list is… Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 9th, 2017
During 2016, the median price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core Market was $179,000, an increase of 5.29 percent from 2015 when the median home price of homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core Market was $170,000, according to MORE, REALTORS and depicted in the table below. There were a total of 27,231 homes sold in the St Louis metro area during 2016, an increase of 8.1 percent from 2015 when there were 25,191 homes sold. As the chart below the table illustrates, St Louis home prices and sales have been trending upward at a fairly consistent rate over the past two years. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 8th, 2017
During 2016, the median price of homes sold in the St Louis MSA was $167,400, an increase of 5.68 percent from 2015 when the median home price of homes sold in the St Louis MSA was $158,400, according to MORE, REALTORS and depicted in the table below. There were a total of 35,571 homes sold in the St Louis metro area during 2016, an increase of 3.3 percent from 2015 when there were 34,434 homes sold. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 29th, 2016
The number of distressed home sales in St Louis has been on the decline while distressed home prices have remained relatively flat. For the purposes herein, a “distressed” home sale includes short sales, foreclosures, bank-owned and government-owned homes. Thus far, as the chart below illustrates, there have been 2,170 distressed home sales in the St Louis 5-County Core market (the City of St Louis and Counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) this year which is a decline of 23% from last year when there were 2,871 distressed homes sold and down 38.4% from 2014 when there were Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 26th, 2016
Fastest selling areas at the end of December? Yes, it happens today, even at the end of December and as we approach what is historically the slowest home-selling month of the year, January. No doubt the low inventory of homes for sale is playing a part in this as well as, perhaps, the recent uptick in interest rates and threat of higher rates in 2017 may be encouraging home buyers to speed up their home search. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 22nd, 2016
Home affordability throughout the St Louis area declined in the fourth quarter of this year from the same time last year according to a report released this morning by Attom Data Solutions. As the table below shows, the affordability of homes in the St Louis area, as well as every major county in Missouri, declined during the current quarter meaning that it now takes a larger percentage of a persons income (based upon average wages for the county) to buy the “typical” home in that county (based upon a median-priced home). Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 20th, 2016
St Louis home prices rose 7.22 percent in the past 12 months (through the end of November 2016) compared with with prior 12 months, according to newly released data by MORE, REALTORS. As the tables below show, for the St Louis MSA, the median price of homes sold during the 12 month period ended November 30, 2016 was $169,408. For the prior 12 month period, the median sales price of homes sold in the St Louis MSA was $158,000. Home sales increased in the St Louis Metro Area as well during the period with 36,973 homes being sold in the 12 month period ended November 30, 2016, an increase of 8.57% from the prior 12 month period when there were 34,056 homes sold in the St Louis MSA. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 16th, 2016
All five counties in the St Louis core St Louis market are still “seller’s markets” all with under 6 months supply of homes for sale. The best sellers markets in town have a one month, or less, supply of homes for sale making this a great time to sell a home in spite of the fact it’s mid-December.
Want to know more? If so, then check out our just-released, 5-minute, video market update below which will go into more detail and give you a quick overview of St Louis home prices, where the sellers markets are, the buyers markets Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 10th, 2016
A lot has happened to affect the real estate market where I grew up in the little town of Ferguson in North County over the past decade. First, like the rest of the country, beginning around 2000, Ferguson saw home prices increase at rates outpacing inflation until finally peaking in 2006 which then led to the housing market bubble burst shortly thereafter. Home prices in Ferguson, and everywhere else, then declined over the next few years until hitting bottom around the end of 2011, or beginning of 2012. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on December 8th, 2016
Home prices in St Louis, like most places in the country, peaked around 2007 at the height of the bubble, then, when the housing bubble burst in 2008, home prices began falling and didn’t hit the post bubble bottom until around late 2011 or early 2012 in most areas. Since hitting bottom, home prices throughout the St Louis area have recovered not only regaining what was lost after the bubble burst, but, in most cases, rising back above the peak levels from the height of the bubble nearly 10 years ago. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 29th, 2016
Which cities within the St Louis area have seen the largest increases in the median price of homes sold during the past year? Well, the cities on the top 10 list are pretty diverse both in price range and location and some may surprise you. As the list below shows, the city of Pacific, in Franklin County, is at the top of the list with the median price of homes sold for the 12 month period ended October 31, 2016 coming in at $175,000, a 42.86 percent increase from the prior 12 month period. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 23rd, 2016
Yesterday, the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) released their existing home sales data for October 2016 which revealed home sales in the U.S. during that month were at a, seasonally-adjusted, annual, rate of 5.6 million homes, an increase in rate of 2 percent from the month before. We track St Louis home sales data in a little different manner, comparing the most recent 12 month period with the prior 12 month period, so a rolling 12 month average of sorts, and, as the table below shows, home sales in the St Louis MSA for the 12-month period ending October 31, 2016, increased 6.64% from the prior 12 month period and we have branded the St Louis MSA housing market as a “Hot Seller’s Market”. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 21st, 2016
Home prices in St Louis rose in the past 12 months compared with with prior 12 months, according to newly released data by MORE, REALTORS. As the report below shows, for St Louis City and County, the median price of homes sold during the 12 month period ended October 31, 2016 was $169,900, an increase of 3% from the prior 12 month period when the median sales price of homes sold in the city and county of St Louis was $164,900. Home sales increased as well during the period with 16,233 homes being sold in the 12 month period ended October 31, 2016, an increase of over 7% from the prior 12 month period when there were 15,149 homes sold in the city and county of St Louis. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 17th, 2016
This past week Boeing Co., one of St Louis’s largest employers (5ht or 6th largest give or take) announced they would be moving 500 jobs to St Louis from Huntington Beach, California as part of it’s Defense, Space & Security business. The jobs they are bring to St. Louis are good jobs and will mean that roughly 500 employees, many with families, will be relocating to St Louis soon. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 14th, 2016
The supply of homes for sale in St Louis continues to decline in spite of entering the “slow season”. As revealed in our market update video for November, the supply of active listings throughout the St Louis area remains low and, in 4 out of 5 of the “core-market” counties, has decreased since last month. Contrary to popular opinion that spring is the best time to sell your home, if you are located in one of the areas with a very low supply you may very well want to take a hard look at selling now while the opportunity is there. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on November 7th, 2016
When I last published our list of fastest selling neighborhoods, back in the height of the spring/early summer market in mid June, the city of Shrewsbury was at the top of the list with an average time on market for listings of just 29 days. Well, here we are approaching mid-November, the beginning of the typical seasonal slow down and Shrewsbury is still at the top of the list of fastest selling neighborhoods in St Louis and, to top it off, the average time on market of current listings is 34 days, just 5 days more than back in June! Continue Reading →
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