By Dennis Norman, on February 21st, 2021
The St Louis real estate market has started off 2021 strong, but is a change coming? Closings of home sales in January were strong with more sales closing than in January of last year, but with everything going and the uncertainty of the economy will it continue? I address both the current state of the St Louis real estate market, as well as discuss our “leading indicator” data which gives us a glimpse of where the market is headed in the St Louis Real Estate Market Update video you can access below. [xyz-ips snippet=”Market-Update-Video-Package”] [xyz-ips snippet=”Seller-Resources—Listing-Targeted”] Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 18th, 2021
The St Louis real estate market has slowed a little in February thus far. As the Local Market Trends reports (availably exclusively from MORE, REALTORS® ) show, new contracts written on listings as well as new listings in St Louis 5-County Core market, were down in each of the first two weeks of February both from the prior week as well as from the same period a year ago.
New contracts written (new sales):
As the reports below show, there were 590 new contracts written (new sales) on homes during the 2nd week of February which was 13% fewer contracts Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
By Dennis Norman, on June 17th, 2020
There were 542 homes “flipped” in the St Louis metro area during the first quarter of 2020, or 8.5% of the total number of homes sold in the St Louis metro area during the quarter, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Solutions. This is an increase of 13.8% from the prior quarter and is a decrease of 2% from a year ago. The median gross profit was 52,900 a 60.8% gross ROI.
Definition of a “flipped” home…
For the purposes of this report, a flipped home is considered to be any home or condo that was sold during Continue Reading →
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.
[xyz-ips snippet=”Homes-For-Sale-and-Listings-With-Virtual-Tours”]
St Louis 5-County Core Market Home Sales Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
By Dennis Norman, on April 24th, 2020
Maybe it’s the gorgeous weather, a more optimistic outlook after receiving stimulus payments or perhaps just being tired of waiting in limbo, but homebuyers have come out strong in St Louis during the past week! St Louis home sales are still not at the levels we would expect at this time of year but, as my table below shows, for the St Louis MSA as a whole, the most recent 7-day period is down just 16% from the same time last year. This is about half the decline I’ve seen when pulling the data as recently as a week ago.
Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 23rd, 2020
Fannie Mae issued their monthly housing forecast for April which includes, among other data, a forecast of what mortgage interest rates will be in the coming months. Last months forecast had projected that mortgage rates would continue to decline moving forward but only to a low of 3.1% before the end of 2021 while the April forecast predicted the interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage would fall to 2.9% in the 2nd quarter of 2021 and stay there through the balance of the year.
If you’re able, now’s the time to buy!
While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 14th, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic (coronavirus) began impacting the St Louis area just a little over a month ago and I’ve been tracking the impact on the St Louis real estate market along the way. From the outset, we have seen a decline in the number of new listings, new sales and physical showings of listings, however, overall the decline has remained fairly constant. New sales of listings for the St Louis area has pretty well hovered around a level equal to about tw0-thirds of the activity we saw at the same time last year.
Now that we are about a month Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 10th, 2020
The St Louis real estate market is off to a good start for 2020 however, it is getting impacted by COVID-19. This month’s market update video includes market data through the end of March but, even though about 2/3 of March was after COVID-19 began disrupting things here, the effects really cannot be seen yet. A couple of weeks ago I did a Special Report video that was specifically about the impact of coronavirus on the St Louis real estate market, but it won’t be until our May market report that we really see the full impact of it on Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 9th, 2020
The average property tax amount in 2019 for a residential property was $2,840, according to the latest data released from ATTOM Data Research. Based upon the average estimated home value for the St Louis MSA of $211,816, this works out to an effective property tax rate of 1.34% which is slightly less than last year’s effective rate of 1.36% and is the same as the rate of 1.34% in 2016.
St Louis MSA Effective Property Tax Rates – 2016 – 2019
Data source: ATTM Data Solutions – Copyright 2020 -has St Louis Real Estate News
[xyz-ips Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 8th, 2020
Yesterday, I shared data showing that, in spite of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, new sales of residential listings in the 5-county core St Louis market for the most recent 7-day period that complete data is available for, were down 35% from a year ago. I received requests to break the data down further so I did so by county. As the table below shows, for the 7-day period ended April 2nd, new sales of listings in St Charles County were down just 25% from the prior year. The reason the period ends April 2nd is REALTORS® has 3 business days Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on April 7th, 2020
As the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic continues to keep many of us confined to our homes unless we need to go out for an essential service which, fortunately, the department of Homeland Security includes real estate in the definition, it is, of course, taking its toll on the St Louis real estate market. As would be expected during a time like this, would-be homebuyers who have had their jobs or businesses impacted as a result of COVID-19 have pulled out of the market for now as have some folks who were considering a move purely for convenience or some other reason Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 30th, 2020
I’ve written several articles over the past couple of weeks about the impact the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having on the St Louis real estate market. Hopefully, it has been of some benefit to people that either already had their homes on the market, were in the market to buy or considering buying or selling. Yesterday, I took all of the most recent information and updates that I think people in those situations will find useful and packed it all into a short, 4-minute, video special report on the impact of COVID-19 on the St Louis Real Estate Market.
You Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 28th, 2020
St Louis sellers appear to remain pretty confident in the St Louis real estate market in spite of the COVID-19 threat as evidenced by the number of new residential listings that hit the St Louis market in the past 7 days. During the past 7 days, there were 701 new residential listings on the St Louis 5-County Core Market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) this is a decline of just 25% from the same period last year when there were 943 listings. For the St Louis MSA, there were 930 new Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 25th, 2020
As all of us continue to deal with a much different lifestyle as a result of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) I am closely monitoring the St Louis real estate market to help get the most accurate information possible to our agents, clients, and consumers to help them make informed decisions about their real estate transactions.
With this in mind, I took a look at new contracts on listings for the past 7 days, so in other words, homes that actually went under contract during the period, but this time, I wanted to drill down deeper than I did a few Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 21st, 2020
As I mentioned in my article yesterday about the effect of the coronavirus on the St Louis real estate market, for those homebuyers in a position to buy a home, there will be some good opportunities presented. Apparently, there are buyers out there that perhaps feel the same way or, they at least are not uncomfortable with buying now as, in the past 7 days, 1,670 listings in MARIS, the regional MLS that serves the St Louis area as well as some additional areas outside the metro area, went under contract. When pulling data from our database for this, I Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 20th, 2020
While we deal with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic practicing social-distancing, shutting down events, public gatherings and the like, we are still trying to go on with our lives at the same time. A big challenge to this is the unknown; not knowing how bad things will get, how long we may have to live like this, etc. Fortunately, for those of us in Missouri, at the time I’m writing this, we have just 41 confirmed cases putting Missouri at number 40 of the 50 states in terms of the number of cases. Granted, once more people are tested, our position Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 14th, 2020
The St Louis real estate market is off to a great start for 2020! Home sales year to date has outpaced sales from the same time a year ago and everything points to 2020 being a good year for real estate! The $64 question is, however, what effect the Coronavirus may have on the market. Only time will tell, but my thoughts are that while there will no doubt be some negative impact on the St Louis housing market as a result of Coronavirus (COVID-19) its impact will be much less than what we have seen of late in the Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on March 5th, 2020
There were 737 homes “flipped” in the St Louis metro area during the fourth quarter of 2019, or 7.2% of the total number of homes sold in the St Louis metro area during the quarter, according to data just released by ATTOM Data Solutions. This is an increase of 9% from the prior quarter and is a decrease of 6% from a year ago. The median gross profit was 64.450 a 71% gross ROI and a significant increase from a year ago when the Gross ROI was 54.1%.
Definition of a “flipped” home…
For the purposes of this report, a Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 29th, 2020
It may still be winter, which most people know is the “slow-season” for real estate, however, there are still plenty of areas in St Louis where homes are selling fast! Below is the list of the fastest-selling zip codes (only available from MORE, REALTORS on their St Louis Real Estate Search® site, which reveals the 63144 zip code in St Louis county as the fastest-selling zip with an average time of just 21 days on the market for active listings. The second zip on the list, and just a day behind the average for the Brentwood area of 63144, si Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 26th, 2020
Nearly ten years ago I first wrote about the owner of a property in Ballwin that was sentenced to 20 days in jail after he had refused to make changes to the art displayed in his yard that officials for the city of Ballwin had deemed to be dangerous. The property owner, Lewis Greenberg, had decorated his home and filled his yard with a variety of items he referred to as “art” that was to make a statement about the Holocaust.
After hearing of this back in May 2010, I decided to check out his home at 977 Morena Court, Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 19th, 2020
It’s been over six years since the shooting of Michael Brown brought riots to the streets of Ferguson and national attention on the small north county municipality. The end result was quite devastating to businesses and the community as a whole and many predicted Ferguson’s demise.
One year later, I did an analysis of the impact on the housing market in an article on St Louis Real Estate News in which I revealed market data showing that while the results were somewhat mixed, the housing market in Ferguson didn’t really appear to have been too negatively impacted at the time.
Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 12th, 2020
The St Louis real estate market is off to a good start for 2020! The home sales trends going into this year are encouraging and, coupled with the strong economy we are in, has me very confident that 2020 is going to be a great year for the St Louis real estate market! MORE buying power! In addition, long term mortgage interest rates just dropped again giving buyers more buying power! See the example in my video of just how much less a home will cost you today payment-wise than 14 months ago, even after appreciation has pushed prices up. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on February 3rd, 2020
Throughout 2019 St Louis home sales were running slightly behind the prior year and looked like that is how the year would end but, thanks to a strong finish, St Louis home sales for 2019 ended up being slightly higher than the year before. As the report below shows, the 5-county core St Louis real estate market (without distressed sales) ended 2019 with 25,946 home sales, up 0.71% from the year before when there we 25,674 homes sold. The median price of homes sold during 2019 (non-distressed) was $215,000, an increase fo 4.88% from the year before when the median Continue Reading →
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