February may be the Month of Love, but home buyers sure aren’t feeling much of it this year. The inventory shortage is continuing and getting even more severe.
We only had 461 homes in the market this morning. And since we sold 817 in the last 30 days across Washington and Benton Counties, that leaves us with 0.56 Months of Supply. There have only been 2 weeks in the last 2 years that our Months of Supply has been this low. And that was back at the end of May 2021, when our Months of Supply dipped to 0.55 and 0.56 as the spring buying rush met with an absence of new listings hitting the traditional spring listing market.
I’d expect this supply number to be even lower coming into our Spring season this year. We just haven’t been able to get enough homes flowing into our marketplace.
(That means if we had no more homes enter the market, we’d sell through all the available homes in about 16 days!)
And this continually dwindling supply has brought about record pricing levels. Prices will likely even rise from this level, trending upward through the rest of 2022. There are a few factors that could slow the price growth, like potentially higher interest rates. But all indicators are still pointing toward prices continuing to climb.
Most economists’ forecasts I’m seeing are expecting between 12% and 16% price appreciation over 2022. And with the sales numbers staying this strong, even during these winter months, it looks like those predictions could easily come true.
In fact, January was the highest selling January in our local records at 758 closed transactions. And that same month, we were sitting on the lowest number of houses in the market on record (Active & Pending), with the exception of the preceding month (December 2021), which had only 70 fewer (2,492).
In December, home prices blasted up to find new highs never before seen in our region. Our average soared all the way up to $355,178, and the Median rocketed to $296,882. Then in January, the prices only slipped back to $351,839 (Avg) and $296,085 (Med).
As these prices solidify as the new pricing floor, we could see prices climb this Spring and Summer. If the forecasts hold, we might end up with Averages at or above $400,000 by the end of 2022, believe it or not.
What it all Means for You
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing toward prices maintaining this level or rising from here. The longer you wait, the more you will likely pay in the future.
If you’ve been thinking of selling your home, right now is a historically good time to do so. These market forces continue to push prices higher and higher across our region.
And even though the prices are already high, my clients have been using my Preparation Plans and Top-Notch Marketing, and have been getting offers at $10,000, $20,000, even $30,000 over the average sales prices for their neighborhoods.
To see the strategies we’ve been implementing, Watch my “Pre-Listing Price Accelerator” Guide Here and see How To Maximize Your Home Sale. It will walk you through everything I’ve been doing to get these amazing results for my home sellers.
But then you run into the problem of finding your next place. Understandably, many potential home sellers have decided to stay put because they don’t think they’ll be able to find their next home with so few on the market. And that’s the big issue, the main problem to solve this year.
For this reason, I’ve put together a program to find “Hidden Inventory, Off Market Homes” for my clients.
This is my #1 Strategy to get you and your family out of your current home and into your dream home. Let’s see what we can find together!
Just click here to learn all about the “Dream Home Finder” Program!