An Extraordinary January
Showings per listing near July 2020 high point amid continued
rising sales, sales prices

January Real Estate Market Commentary:

January started off strong for the housing market, with healthy buyer demand and strong market fundamentals. A robust increase in housing starts in December points to an active year for new construction, but higher material costs, especially lumber, and a limited supply of buildable lots will temper the number of new units.

Closed Sales increased 6.1 percent for Residential homes but decreased 2.4 percent for Condo homes. Pending Sales decreased 0.5 percent for Residential homes but increased 12.8 percent for Condo homes. Inventory decreased 54.1 percent for Residential homes and 33.9 percent for Condo homes.

The Median Sales Price increased 15.9 percent to $197,000 for Residential homes and 3.9 percent to $180,000 for Condo homes. Days on Market decreased 28.8 percent for Residential homes and 19.0 percent for Condo homes. Months Supply of Inventory decreased 56.0 percent for Residential homes and 35.7 percent for Condo homes.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s January research estimates approximately 2.7 million homeowners with mortgages are currently in forbearance plans. Some of these homes may eventually come to market but given the strong appreciation in most market segments in recent years, these eventual home sales are likely to be mostly traditional sellers. However, a modest increase in short sales and foreclosures at some point this year would not be surprising.

January Year-Over-Year Quick Comparisons:

• • Last month, Realcomp imported nearly 1.9M listing records into the Realcomp MLS database as a part of our expanded data sharing efforts with MichRIC (an MLS provider on the west side of Michigan). These new records have produced an increase in January listing counts for this year and last year. Based on our review of the overall numbers, the following metrics were captured:
  • New Listings were down by 20.3% from 10,732 to 8,549.
  • Pending Sales were up by 1.2% from 8,136 to 8,231.
  • Closed Sales were up by 5.1% from 7,079 to 7,437.
  • Listings that were both listed and pended in the same month were at 3,955. This represents 46.3% of the new listings for the month and 48% of the pended listings for the month.
  • Median Sales Price was up by 14.7% from $170,010 to 195,000.
  • Months-Supply of Inventory was down by 53.8% from 2.6 to 1.2.
  • Average Showings per Home increased from 7.5 to 11.3.