Two Minute Take: July 2024

I’ve said for years that the general pacing of the market is as follows: January through Daylight Savings weekend is modest; mid-March through the end of June is a progressive ‘building up’; 4th of July week is D.E.A.D; mid-July through the start of school is ‘spotty’; and then from September through mid-November is a gradual descent.

Of course, it’s not always exactly that way - and the irony is that the more severely the market is tilted towards sellers, the LESS severe the swings in activity become.  Said another way: when there’s very little inventory, the market moves quickly ALL YEAR.

Still, though, summer is hard to predict, and not really the time to lean too heavily on monthly market stats.  Everything is less predictable - people’s schedules, their availability, overall motivation - everything is up in the air, because after all - it’s SUMMER!

So - while it is good to see what’s happening and track those data points, I’m less inclined to do too much forecasting based on summer activity.  You can look at the numbers this month and see that much of the activity is pretty flat. The average list and average sales prices are nearly the same as a year ago.  New listings are up a bit; sold listings are down a bit.

The most dramatic changes were in the number of days a home was on the market, and the total month’s worth of inventory.  While percentage-wise both saw strong gains - those gains were against historically low figures.  The average number of days it took a home to sell increased by 5 days.  That’s probably not something most buyers or sellers felt in the market this past June.

The inventory rate has steadily been creeping upward, and that is something folks on both sides can feel.  Sellers realize that buyers might look at their home - and then take time to think about it.  That didn’t happen much two years ago.  And buyers know they have the time to think about it.  And maybe look a little more before making that decision.  Not a long time, mind you… just a little more than they used to have.

We’ll see what happens when we get into the fall, and whether these trend lines continue along the same path.  If they do, that would be progress in a healthy direction.