By Dennis Norman, on May 21st, 2016 There were 2,290 St Louis Existing Homes Sold in April (in the 5-county core market), an increase of 1.0 percent from April 2015 when there were 2,265 homes sold. The median home price of homes in the St Louis 5-county core market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Franklin and Jefferson) during April 2016 was $173,850, an increase of 4.4 percent from April 2015 when the median price of existing homes sold was $166,500.
For the combined markets of the City of St Louis and the County of St Louis, there were 1,241 existing single Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on May 17th, 2016 The current home price trend is down in each of the 5 core counties this month, but home sales are still robust in most St Louis markets and the inventory of homes for sale remains low.
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 and much more! If you are considering buying or selling a home, or are an investor or just a homeowner wanting to keep Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on May 2nd, 2016 The St Peters real estate market is the hottest sellers market in the St Louis area, based upon the months supply of homes for sale. As the table below shows, as of today, there are 69 active listings of homes for sale in St Peters and there were 68 homes sold which translates to a one month supply of homes for sale there today. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 29th, 2016 During the 12 month period ended March 31, 2016, just over 1 of every 5 home sales in St Louis (21.46%) was a cash sale which is a decline of 9.2% from the prior 12-month period when nearly 1 in 4 home St Louis home sales (23.63%)was a cash sale. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 26th, 2016 Yes, believe it or not, in spite of how fast some homes, in some price ranges and neighborhoods are selling, often the first day on the market, and in spite of how many St Louis markets are currently seller’s markets, giving seller’s the upper hand in negotiations, there are some buyer’s markets in St Louis, where the buyer actually has an advantage over sellers! To find these markets, there is no one statistic or piece of data that can identify it, but I use a couple to find those markets and will share what I feel are currently the best places in St Louis to be a home buyer today. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 25th, 2016 New home sales in the midwest region of the U.S. during March rose 10.3 percent from March 2015, according to a report just released by the US Census Bureau. In March 2016, new homes were sold in the Midwest at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 64,000 new homes, an increase of 18.5 percent from February, when the rate was 54,000 homes and a 10.3 percent increase from March 2015 when the rate of new home sales in the midwest was 58,000 homes annually. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 24th, 2016 It’s a beautiful spring Sunday morning in St Louis and many people will spend part of the afternoon touring open houses…some looking for their next home, some to see what homes in their neighborhood are selling for and some simply to kill time, satisfy curiosity or get some decorating ideas. Whatever your reason for seeking out St Louis open houses, the best source to find information on all the homes that are scheduled to have open houses today (with information from a database that is updated direct from the MLS!) is StLouisOpenHoues.com. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 23rd, 2016 Earlier this month, General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued guidance on the “Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records by Providers of Housing and Real Estate-Related Transaction”. This guidance has caused concern among many landlords as many, in an effort to assure safe housing for their tenants, do criminal background checks on prospective tenants and have a policies against renting to applicants with a criminal background, a practice that, according to this guidance, may very well be considered to be discriminatory now. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 22nd, 2016 Three of the five St Louis area cities where homes are selling the fastest are in north St Louis County. As the table below shows, which ranks St Louis area cities by the average days current listings of homes for sale have been on the market, which is a good measure of how fast homes are selling, the city of Crestwood, with an average of 29 days on the market, is number 1 on the list. In 2nd, 3rd and 5th place respectively are the north St Louis county cities of Moline Acres, Dellwood and Black Jack. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 21st, 2016 St Louis home prices appear to be trending downward a little even though we are in the midst of a fairly robust spring market. This is based upon the current price per foot of active listings for sale compared with what home sales that closed last month, as well as prior 12 months, sold for on a per-foot basis. As the tables below show, the price per foot trend is down in all 6 counties we track, with the biggest downward trends showing in St Louis County and the city of St Louis, both of which have seen the median price per foot of active listings fall below what homes in those counties sold for in the prior 12 months. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 20th, 2016 There were 2,869 St Louis Existing Homes Sold in March, an increase of 8.6 percent from March 2015 when there were 2,640 homes sold. The median home price of homes in the St Louis 5-county core market during March 2016 was $155,500, an increase of 3.3 percent from March 2015 when the median price of existing homes sold was $150,000 Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 19th, 2016 It’s hard to drive through a neighborhood today and not see a “coming soon” rider on a for sale sign in front of a house. With the St Louis real estate market still favoring sellers in many markets due to a low supply of homes for sale, it’s not surprising that coming soon listings create somewhat of a fervor among would-be buyers and their agents. Continue Reading →
By Mike Hejna, on April 8th, 2016 St. Louis County is entertaining the idea of adding the City of St. Louis to its list of incorporated municipalities. All legal opinions rmly show that the County will absorb NONE of the City’s nancial responsibilities. If this were to happen the City of St. Louis will be no di erent than municipalities such as Clayton, Ellisville, or Chester eld. It would simply be another city located in St. Louis County. I am an advocate for this move. The City needs to cease County functions and turn them over to the County. Currently, practices and city functions run at ine cient levels. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 30th, 2016 There were 1,875 home pending home sales in the St Louis area (5 county core market) in February, 13.7 percent less than a year ago when there were 2,172 pending home sales. Listings with a contract on them from a buyer, but have not closed yet, are counted as pending home sales. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 27th, 2016 A recent article by STL Today indicated that home affordability in St Louis had fallen, specifically noting that affordability in St Louis County had fallen below historic “norms”. As is always the case with stats, it depends upon which data you are taking into account and the accuracy of the data. I decided to take a look at the data and see if my data showed the same result as the STL Today article. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 25th, 2016 St Louis Home Sales in February rose to 1,973 sales for the 5-county core St Louis market, an increase of 4.9 percent from January’s 1,880 sales. February home sales (closings) in St Louis, while increasing 3 percent from a year ago, did not increase from January’s sales at the same rate as last year. From January 2015 to February 2015, in St Louis, we saw an increase in home sale closings of over 23 percent which, coming out of the historically slowest closing month of the year (January) and headed to the biggest selling market of the year (spring), we would expect. This year, however, we saw just a 4.9 percent increase in sales (closings) from January to February. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 17th, 2016 This morning RealtyTrac released a report identifying neighborhoods with higher rates of registered criminal offenders (including sex offenders, child predators, kidnappers and violent offenders) and then comparing the housing statistics for those neighborhoods to ones with lower rates of registered criminal offenders. For the report, cities were given an index, from 0 to 100, with a higher value indicating a higher percentage of offenders, then these cities were sorted into five categories, based upon their index, from Very High Offender Rate to Very Low Offender rate.
The findings from this report are below:
Cities in the U.S. at the Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 14th, 2016 Just like the early arrival of spring temperatures in St Louis, the spring real estate market has arrived early in St Louis as well! New listings of homes priced appropriately for the market and, in price ranges and areas of good demand, are having multiple showings the first day of hitting the market and are often under contact by day 2 or 3 of hitting the market. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 11th, 2016 In the St Louis area there were 44,674 (7.9 percent of all residential properties) with negative equity, or underwater, during the 4th quarter of 2015, according to a report just released by Corelogic. This is a decline of 18.6 percent from the year before when there were 54,604 St Louis homeowners in a negative equity position (9.7 percent of all residential properties) . Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 1st, 2016 Pending home sales in St Louis fell slightly last month from a year ago for the 5-county core St Louis market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin). Through the end of last month, there were 3,182 pending home sales for the area, down slightly from 3,200 during the same period a year ago. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 25th, 2016 The St Louis real estate market is off to a good start for 2016 but that doesn’t mean there aren’t St Louis neighborhoods that are experiencing a buyer’s market giving home buyers an advantage over sellers, at least to an extent. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 11th, 2016 According to a report just released this morning by RealtyTrac, 6,809, of the 103,855 residential properties in the city of St Louis, are vacant. This vacant property rate of 6.6 percent for the City of St Louis is over four times higher than the national rate of 1.6 percent. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 9th, 2016 If you live in St Clair and want to see your home, with an 18 month supply of homes currently listed for sale, you are going to have to either price your home very competitively to make it stand out from the crowd, or be prepared for it to take a while. As the table below shows, second on the list of cities with the highest supply of homes for sale, is Pacific, with more than a 13 month supply of homes for sale. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 8th, 2016 The St Louis real estate market is off to a good start for 2016 with non-distressed home sales during January increasing 30 percent from a year ago. In the St Louis five-county core market, there were nearly 1,700 total homes sold (1,697) during January 2015, up 19.3% from January 2015 where there were 1,423 total sales. Non-distressed sales (private sales only, no foreclosures, REO’s, etc) accounted for 1,430 of the home sales during January 2015, an increase of 30% from January 2015 when there were 1,101 homes sold. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 3rd, 2016 The St Louis real estate and housing market saw a good year last year but, as we are frequently reminded, real estate is very “local” and prices, as well as market conditions, can vary widely even between cities or towns just a mile or two apart. This is clearly illustrated when I look at a report our company produces, based upon home sales data, obtained directly from the St Louis REALTOR® MLS, that shows the median price per foot for homes sold (or currently for sale) throughout the St Louis area. I like price per square foot data as I believe that is one of the more accurate ways of seeing trends in home prices. We compile this data and publish it live, and real-time, online, for each city in St Louis as well as zip code. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 27th, 2016 Before I begin, I should point out that what I’m about to tell you runs contrary to what the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), the largest trade association in the country and one I belong to and support, will tell you. The NAR position on the mortgage interest deduction (MID) is, quoting from their website, “the mortgage interest deduction (MID) is a remarkably effective tool that facilitates homeownership.” Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 26th, 2016 Last year was a pretty good year for the St Louis real estate market with many areas of St Louis seeing an increase in the number of homes sold from the prior year and most of the St Louis area seeing home price appreciation. Many neighborhoods in St Louis saw some new record high home prices so I thought I would take a look at some popular St Louis neighborhoods and the most expensive homes sold in them during 2015. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 12th, 2016 Last night, the City Council for the City of Florissant passed bill number 9135 which, if approved by voters in April, will increase residential rental real estate license fees. In addition to increasing the rental real estate license fee from $15.00 to $50.00, this ordinance also changes the calculation of the fee from a “per owner” fee to a “per unit” fee. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 8th, 2016 Yesterday, St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Gloria Reno granted a temporary restraining order against St Louis County to stop implementation of their recently adopted rental licensing ordinance. This is a huge victory for landlords, and property owners in general, as the new ordinance, as I wrote about previously, trampled property rights in many ways. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on January 7th, 2016 Along with the end of 2015 came one of the busiest time periods for listings of homes for sale to expire. To put it in perspective, during the last two weeks of December, there were almost 1,300 listings that expired within the St Louis five-county core market, more than double the number of listings that expired during the last two weeks of November. Continue Reading →
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