April 2020 Real Estate Market Update – Oakland County, Michigan

We have your Oakland County April 2020 Real Estate Market Update. So let's jump into this. However, I know things are just absolutely insane right now. We've had an absolute massacre in the markets. The wind is acting up here just as the markets are. I hope that you are finding some positives out of this time. I hope you're staying healthy and your family. I hope you're having some positives come out of all this and your mind is open to seeing some of the positives that are coming out of this. I actually listed in my journal today, 20 things that my wife and I have changed. Our family has changed positives in our life and being thankful for the time we've had at home together. Really, a change in life that has really benefited us to be quite honest. So I hope that you found some of that as well. So let's jump into this. Oakland County April 2020 Market Update is going to be a little interesting. So let's do it.

First thing, we always do three years because that way we can see the trend. The trend is your friend, remember that. It's gonna be more important than ever to see that trend. This is why I've been doing these videos for four years because of times like this when we see absolute cast in the markets. Then you can go back, watch those videos. You can see the trends here and see exactly what is going on. So that's why we have that. Then, we have the month in arrears because now we have all the data, it's hot off the press.

Days on market

DOM - 46 two years ago, 54 last year, and then 53 this year. So, a little bit of a decrease. Again, we've seen that across the board. The short-term, big-time deflationary event, buyers having to stay home. Demand is way, way down. And you're gonna see it down here at the bottom as well. You're gonna see some incredible numbers just all over the board. It's just crazy. I love numbers. I love data. That's why it's just absolutely incredible what's going on here.

Active number of homes

That's a one-day sample size. How many homes are on the market that day when the data was taken? Three thousand three hundred eighty-one two years ago, 4,408 last year, then 3,695. A huge decrease this year back down under 2018 levels. We're seeing these very similar numbers across the board.

Month of inventory

Two, three, and then four. We're now up to four in Oakland County, which is again, incredible. We're now into balanced the territory. People might say, "Well, why? There are fewer homes in the market. Shouldn't prices be going more of an inventory crush? Why are we not seeing prices go up even more? Well, we are actually seeing prices go up as we're gonna see here in a minute. However, it's still going towards more of a buyer's market because we've had such a deceleration, such a deflation in buyer demand that you still have. The market's going this. They call it last times "indeflation" or there are different terms for it when you have inflation and deflation in the market at the same time. So truly remarkable what's going on right now. It's very, very rare to have opposite market forces going at the same time. It's truly remarkable.

As I said, one to three months is a seller's market. Four to six months is a balanced market and then seven-plus months is a buyer's market. We saw that in the great recession. We saw things going up, which I tend to think of being on the edge of the coin like we always talk about. You want to be able to see both sides. You have some experts saying that we're going to be absolutely decimated and millions and millions of foreclosures in the next year or two. And then you've got some saying, "Hey, this is great. Look, prices are going up, things are good. Things are good." I tend to be on the side that we're going to have more problems going forward than we aren't. I look at things very macro. I study the macro and I studied global happenings. I think the people that are more micro-focused and saying, "Hey, it's more of a local game." I think that one, they're right. Real estate is very local. However, when you have everyone has stayed at home and everyone's got to do this or that, it's affecting everyone. Where sometimes when the economy experience has hiccups, you see things more local.

I think we're going to see - because we've had such huge issues when you've seen the Fed printing trillions or going to be probably. If you watch this video next year there's going to be 10 plus trillion printed in this next 2012 months. We're in for some interesting times. I just think we're having more problems going forward, which is gonna affect people's jobs. It's going to affect a lot of things going forward. So whether that's the government bailing people out, I don't know. It's a different story for a different day. History tells us we're gonna have a lot of problems now. The Fed and the governments are doing a lot of things that we've never seen before. So maybe they prop it up again one more time. Who knows? We'll continue to revisit this and this is why this is so important right now, so incredibly important. I feel like we're just like a coyote running off the cliff right now chasing the roadrunner and we are just running straight silvers. We have so much momentum. We just haven't looked down yet. I feel like that's where we are because we're so close to the epicenter still. So back to this, that's for different videos and a different time. I have another video coming up soon about negative interest rates. That's been talked about. I have a feeling that might be coming here in America.

I know the Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said last week that that's not going to happen. But you gotta read between the lines.

New homes in the market

Now this is a month-wide number. This is going to boggle your mind. Every single County is going to absolutely boggle your mind. Three thousand two hundred sixty-four two years ago, 3,447 last year and 1,034 this year. Are you kidding me? Down a third. The last county we did I think Macomb was down 75% and another county was down 50%. We're down a third. We're down 66% here in new homes that were on the market in Oakland County. So staying with the theme of what's been going on is, 75%, 66%, 50% down. This is just remarkable. That's just mind blowing what's going on right now. This is why, again, knowing the numbers and seeing the trends and the patterns, this is where you can start to see. "Okay, this is going on here, this is going on there." You have to be able to see some of these things and be able to read between the lines sometimes. Wait, why are these numbers going up and some of these numbers are going down?

It's like learning another language, right? When you're speaking the language of finance or whatever it might be. You're speaking another language. Once you speak that language, then you can start to position yourself appropriately.

Price per square foot

One hundred twenty-four dollars two years ago, $128 last year, $139 this year. Again, remember we have such a deflationary event. Prices going up briefly in all the counties because we're so close to it. We have an inventory crush and you're still thinking the real estate moves slower. So you're still thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm still racing against other people." The stock market moves very fast, but the real estate market moves slow. So people are still in that mindset. It's gonna take a few months. They still think that it's crazy. Just incredible stuff here. If you multiply this by your square footage, it'll give you the approximate value of your home. But again, you have to have someone on our team or an appraiser come out and give you an actual value in your home because this is a countywide number.

Sold

This is the people actually closing on their home, sitting at the closing table. One thousand seven hundred ninety-eight two years ago, 1,706 last year, and then 1,008 this year. That's a huge drop off again. That's something like a 40% drop off. That's absolutely remarkable. Just incredible. It's going out. As I always say in all the videos, this is why this is so important in seeing these watching videos every single month. Because I always say, unless it was some type of calamity or some type of anomaly some, type of catastrophe, this number doesn't change too much. It's a pretty consistent number because this is the buyer demand actually. Well, now we've had one of those events so it's coming to fruition. All of the things I've been saying over the years and now you're seeing this number just absolutely slice and dice. So this is huge. This is a major thing to come.

If you're on the podcast @legacygroupmi, it's the Facebook and YouTube channel, go there to question, comment, concern, tag people who might need to see this. You might know people in these areas, please go share with them. It's just so important. I think there are some incredibly difficult times to have, but it's also a massive opportunity for those that are prepared. Whether you need liquidity, getting an equity line in your house or you need to sell your house and move somewhere else, there are options available and you have to know where you're at in order to do that. So I appreciate you guys, your time and energy.. It's the most important thing that we have. I appreciate you sharing with us right now and we'll see you very soon.