There were 5,755 homes sold in St Charles County in the 12-month period ending September 30, 2019, a decline of 5.2% from a year ago when there were 6,070 homes sold in the prior 12-months. This is the lowest 12-month trend since February 2016 when there were 5,676 homes sold in the prior 12-months.
As the chart below illustrates, even with the declining trend in home sales in St Charles County, it is still significantly higher than back in 2014 and 2015.
Lack of listings in St Charles could be part of the problem…
As the STL Market Report for St Charles County below the chart shows, there is just a 2.37 month supply of homes for sale in St Charles County. This lack of supply of homes for sale is no doubt contributing to the declining home sales trend. Also worth noting is the 6% increase in the median home price in St Charles County from a year ago.
St Louis continues to enjoy a pretty robust real estate market, albeit it a challenging one for buyers due to the low inventory of homes for sale in most areas, with St Louis home sales, during the past 12 months, up over 5 percent from the prior 12-month period and St Louis home prices up over 5 percent for the same period as well. As the table below shows, in the 5-county core St Louis market, there were 27,437 homes sold in the 12-month period ending May 31, 2017, an increase of 5.13% from the prior 12-month period when there were 26,099 homes sold.
Year-over-year for the month of May looks good as well…
As I frequently comment, looking at home prices and sales activity for a 12-month period is the best way to get a realistic view of the market, less affected by timing of sales due to weather, day of the week the last day of the month falls on etc, it’s still worth looking at the most recent month and comparing it to the prior month, as well as prior year, to help spot trends or changes in the trend. With this in mind, as the chart below shows, for the St Louis core market there were 3,070 homes sold in May, 2017, an increase of 21.2% from the month before when there were 2,533 homes sold, and an increase of just under 1% from May 2016 when there were 3,042 homes sold. As the chart also reveals, homes sold in St Louis during May, 2017 were sold for a median price of $185,000, an increase of 2.8% from the month before when the median sales price was $180,000 and a slight increase of just one-half of one-percent from May 2016 when the median price St Louis homes sold for was $184,000.
Franklin County has the largest increases in home prices and sales during past 12 months…
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When considering making an improvement to their home, homeowners often look at it from both the enjoyment value it will give them and their family as well as the investment value of what they are doing. Granted, there are few, if any improvements, you can make to a home that will give you a 100% return on investment, meaning that, for every dollar you spend, your homes value will go up by a dollar, but there are certainly some improvements that come closer than others.
A common improvement, often considered by homeowners, particularly those in areas with a younger housing stock is a finished basement. A finished basement when done right, adds additional living space and/or recreational space to a home that sometimes may have deficiencies in those areas. But how much value does that finished basement add to your home? Of course, there are many variables that go into the answer to that question including the quality of the space finished, the type of space, location of the home as well as the size of the home, but we can use market data to get a general idea. I chose to go with St Charles County for this since the housing stock there is fairly young so the basements are, for the most part, modern, poured concrete basements, usually dry and often with adequate headroom to finish. In addition, many are walkout basements which is a plus for finishing. To try to keep this as an “apples to apples” comparison I chose only 3 and 4 bedroom homes that sold in the past 12 months.
Homes with finished basements sold for nearly 8 percent more…
As the tables below show, in my comparison, homes that had finished basements sold for a median price of $125 per foot and those with unfinished basements for $116 a foot, a difference of 7.8%. The homes with finished basements also sold faster too, selling in a median time of 14 days, less than two-thirds the time it took to sell a home with an unfinished basement which was 22 days (granted, both sold fast!). So, if we do the math and assume that the houses with finished basements, which had a median of 1,719 square feet without the basement (which happen to be smaller homes than those without), sold for the same price per foot as their counterparts with unfinished basements, then that would make the median sales price $199,404, or $11,596 lower, than it was.
As I mentioned above, there is a lot more that needs to be considered, but, as the data shows, there is definitely a return, both in price as well as time to sell, for having a finished basement, but certainly not enough to do it for just investment return reasons. However, if you are going to get enough benefit from the space for an adequate amount of time, it may end up making a lot of sense in the end.
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Lately the news on the real estate market has been a little more optimistic and almost encouraging at times. Most of the news and stats are national or regional and, as I and others have said many, many times, all real estate is local. So what’s going on in the St. Louis market and more specifically, what is selling here?
In putting together stats for this post I included data from the following areas:
Today will be the final post in this series in which Karen has been shared her insights with us on the real estate market in St. Charles County. Now we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday:
Karen Vennard, 2009 President, St. Charles County Association of REALTORS
Dennis – We hear a lot about REO’s, foreclosures and short sales being a large part of the sales activity in many local markets. Do you know what percentage of the current activity in St. Charles County would be these types of sales? Also, please tell us how they affect your market.
Karen – I do not have the percentage of REO/Foreclosures/Short Sales nor can I say that they do not exist but St. Charles County has not been as adversely affected as some areas in the Metropolitan area by these types of sales. Some people can see that this is an opportunity for these “distressed” homes to be sold and brought back up to market value. I see this as a chance to revitalize neighborhoods that may have been affected by an increased number of foreclosures.
Karen’s extensive knowledge of the market was apparent in her informative answers in yesterdays E-View. Now we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday:
Karen Vennard, 2009 President, St. Charles County Association of REALTORS
Dennis – Where do you see the real estate market in St. Charles County at now?
Karen – I see the market recovering; there has been an increase in pending sales in St. Charles county over this time last year. That trend has been seen for the past 4 months now in the County.
Dennis – That’s encouraging news and also is fairly consistent with what I have seen in the metro market. Now, lets talk about home prices. People in most markets would be happy just to see some price stabilization and aren’t even talking about any appreciation in the near future. Has, or is, St. Charles County seeing any price stabilization at this point? Any idea when appreciation may come back into existence? Continue reading “St. Charles County Association of REALTORS(R) Presidents’ view of the market – Part two“
According to the website for the Economic Development Center for St. Charles County, the county was established October 1, 1812. St. Charles County encompasses 561-square-miles of diverse landscape spreading out westward from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
According to the Census Bureau, in 1970 the population of St. Charles county was 92,954. By 2008 the population had grown to 349,307, an increase of over 275% in that 38 year period. During the same period St. Louis County had a modest increase in population of just over 4% growing from 951,671 to 991,830. The city of St. Louis saw a huge decline during the same period with the population dropping from 622,235 people to 354,361, losign over 43% of its population. Continue reading “St. Charles County Association of REALTORS(R) Presidents’ view of the market – Part 1“
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