Sometimes when you follow the market closely you just can’t wait to see what the next month is going to bring and April 2018 was one of those months. The first quarter of this year was very different from what we had seen after the Great Recession. The high-end was doing well and the mid-market was seeing more inventory and fewer sales. Was this a trend or was it just an anomaly of the fact that with that a few sales up here and a few less listings in the winter doldrums numbers tend to jump around in some random Brownian motion?
High-End Moving Along
Now the definitive verdict is still out, but the high end is still doing better this year than last year, though not quite as good in April as it was doing in the first quarter. Above $4 million we are down 30 listings while our year to date transaction (sales and contracts) over $4M are up 13 sales. As a result, months of supply are down dramatically over the last few years.
Over $10 million when you look at sales and contracts months of supply are down 6 years from last year. Now our negativists will point out that in the whole month of April we did not have one sale over $10 million and this dramatic 6-year drop is due to reduce inventory and sales from prior months. True, but we have 2 contracts pending and only 32 ultra-high-end listings at the peak of the market inventory.
|
As of 5/2/18
|
Inventory
|
Contracts
|
Last Mo. Solds
|
Last Month Solds+ Contracts
|
YTD Solds
|
YTD+ Contracts
|
Months of Supply
|
MoS w/ Contracts
|
Last Mo. MoS Annlzd
|
| < $600K |
5 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
6 |
7 |
3.3 |
3.9 |
2.5 |
| $600-$800K |
14 |
8 |
4 |
12 |
14 |
22 |
4.0 |
3.5 |
3.5 |
| $800K-$1M |
19 |
9 |
4 |
13 |
16 |
25 |
4.8 |
4.2 |
4.8 |
| $1-$1.5M |
80 |
21 |
6 |
27 |
21 |
42 |
15.2 |
10.5 |
13.3 |
| $1.5-$2M |
82 |
20 |
12 |
32 |
25 |
45 |
13.1 |
10.0 |
6.8 |
| $2-$3M |
145 |
22 |
8 |
30 |
29 |
51 |
20.0 |
15.6 |
18.1 |
| $3-$4M |
92 |
15 |
8 |
23 |
16 |
31 |
23.0 |
16.3 |
11.5 |
| $4-$5M |
49 |
9 |
4 |
13 |
11 |
20 |
17.8 |
13.5 |
12.3 |
| $5-6.5M |
61 |
6 |
1 |
7 |
8 |
14 |
30.5 |
24.0 |
61.0 |
| $6.5-$10M |
53 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
70.7 |
48.6 |
* |
| > $10M |
32 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
42.7 |
35.2 |
* |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| TOTAL |
632 |
116 |
49 |
165 |
152 |
268 |
16.6 |
13.0 |
12.9 |
Mid-Range Getting Back to Normal
In the mid-range, we have 307 listings between $1 and $3 million. This is up 41 listings or 15% from this time last year. For those commentators that focus on sales only, our sales from $1 – 3 million are down from 88 sales last year to 75 sales this year or a drop of 15 sales. I wouldn’t worry too much however as contracts in that same price range are up by 12 houses or just about the same as the decrease in sales. Also, the $1 – 3 million price range saw an improvement in April, as was expected from the number of contracts waiting to close in March. We will likely see another improvement in May as the 63 contracts in this price range start show up as deeds in the Town Clerk’s office in May and June.
In fact, contracts were up in every price category from $800,000 to $10 million. We have a total of 116 contracts, 44 contingent and 72 pending, which is up from 92 in April 2017. This bodes well for the market overall. Whenever you see most price ranges seeing increased sales and increased contracts things are looking up. Our contracts were up 24 and sales were up 20 from April 2017.
Under $800K Has a Lack of Inventory
Now this was not true under $800K where contracts were flat at 9 houses under contract and we had only 6 sales. I wouldn’t worry about this being some sort of sub-$800K sea change. We only have 19 listings under $800K down 3 from last year so there just not much to buy. We are still looking at less than 4 months of supply indicating a strong sellers’ market.
