Greetings fellow frozen humans! Spring should be especially delightful this year… green and glorious after this plentiful moisture and hopefully warm (that’s one of my happy thoughts this week). Some of the local real estate numbers for January were unexpected, so I thought I’d share.
First the unsurprising: January sales were very low – only 52 residential sales, and while January is always the slowest sales month; these numbers were 58% lower than last year and about 32% lower than a typical January. It’s been well established that the real estate market is in a transitional cycle caused by increased mortgage interest rates paired with high home prices and recession fears. Thus the low sales were expected, as were the sold prices being only 92% of list price.
What I found surprising was the average sold price per foot was $217; eleven percent higher than the December price per foot of $195, and 2.8 % higher than last January. This can be partially accounted for by seller paid concessions – acquiesed to help buyers buy down their interest rates or applied to loan closing costs. About 60% of the transactions reflected these seller contributions to buyer closing costs, which aren’t factored into the final price per foot sales price. At the high point of our market (April, 2022) homes sold 102% of list price, with no concessions given and an average price per foot of $227. Of the 52 homes sold, only 5 were cash sales; and many were government- backed loan programs (VA, USDA & FHA).
Residential home inventory is currently 260 homes on the market in Cache Valley, but 9 of those are “to be built”. While this number is 261% higher than the 72 homes on the market at this time a year ago, it remains historically a very low inventory number… Prior to 2018 we typically had 450-600 residential homes on the market, and that was with a lower population base.
Mortgage interest rates are hovering in the 5.7 – 5.8% range… definitely more palatable than the 7.25% we saw a few months ago.