Real Estate March Madness
A Busy March
If you thought the basketball version of March Madness was Mad hold on to your nets because it clearly bounced into the Real Estate Industry as well. Between Mortgage Rates, CPI, the Fed, lack of inventory and of course bank failures we were all over the place nationally and regionally last month. Active inventory is up, closed homes sales are up, average close price is up and days on market are down (see stats below for exact numbers). All of that speaks to a very active Metro Denver Real Estate market for the month of March. Last month’s pending homes sales climbed 22% and closed homes sales jumped 32% from February. We can’t fail to mention that part of March’s housing activity is also because of seasonality.
March 2023 Housing Market Update
Active Inventory: 4,516 up 19.53%
Closed Sales: 3,790 up 32.29%
Average Close Price: $665,390 up 1.44%
Days On Market: 37 up 22.92% (This is a big drop)
(Stats Reflected here are MoM February to March)
The Price is Right!
Homes which sold without a price reduction are out selling homes sold with a price reduction by 2 ¾ percent. When out showing, making offers and listing homes in this market condition and location are key. What we are seeing is homes that are in ready to sell condition, cleaned, well taken care of, yard work done and staged are selling for over ask with multiple offers no matter what the price point. Add to that a slightly below list price and you can count on a high scoring weekend regarding showing numbers and offers received.
Credit Tightening Coming Your Way?
This idea that credit tightening could bring on the recession and crush the housing market has been floating around for months. According to many sources credit tightening is mainly affecting Car, Commercial and Personal Loans. Several lenders confirm that home loans are less restrictive now than they have been. The loosening of restrictions is part of this administration’s commitment to those people who have missed the opportunity to buy a home because of pricing and lending over the past couple of years.
Goldman Sachs and the 99%
On March 2nd of this year Goldman Sachs was quoted in a Fortune article on Yahoo that 99% of all home loans nationally are under 6% or current market rates. They also stated that 28% of those are under 3%. The article says, “Think about it like this, if you took on a $600,000 mortgage and your rate is 7%, your monthly principal and interest payment would be $3,992. But with the same size loan and a rate of 3%, your monthly payment is slightly over $2,530 a month.” This mathematical equation equates to people not moving and this may influence our housing market for years to come.
Mr. Kinman
There is another story in this article about a gentleman that purchased his home in California at a 3.68% mortgage rate in 2016 and refinanced in 2021 to 2.42%. He’s splitting his time between California and Portland, Oregon, after getting a new job. Instead of losing his low rate that he’s locked into and selling his home, he’s renting an apartment in Portland and traveling between the two states for work—which he says is cheaper because of how reasonable his mortgage payments are.“I can’t afford to sell because I don’t want to lose that rate,” he told Fortune. “If I ever want to move back to California, it’s going to be impossible because I’ll never get a rate lower [than that]. So I am scared as hell to let go of the house at that rate, and I also can’t afford to buy in Portland because the pricing and the rates are too high.” If rates weren’t so high, he said, he’d sell the home and purchase in Portland.
Yet another reason and win for Investing in Real Estate. Across the board and over time real estate scores points.
Looking into the Spring Market
It appears that the spring market is beginning to show its colors not only in our gardens but in our housing market too. Mortgage rates are settling in, folks have grown used to them and inventory remains lighter than demand. Without change to inventory home prices will remain flat or will slightly rise over the next couple of months. What happens if the Fed stops raising rates and inflation starts to slow at a faster rate at the same time? More Madness for our housing market for sure. Thank you all again for supporting our businesses we are grateful.
Data represents Attached and Detached Homes in the 7-county metro area.
We would like to thank DMAR and Yahoo for information and statistics used in crafting this article.