August 2019 Real Estate Market Update – Livingston County, Michigan

We have your August 2019 Livingston County Real Estate Market Update. So let's jump right into this thing. I always preface every video, every market update with two things. We have three years of data. "The trend is your friend," remember that. Now we can see two years of data to see exactly what's going on and see the pattern. Because if we just gave you one year of data it wouldn't make any sense. We also do the month in arrears because now we have all the data. It's fresh off the press, just like the government does their numbers the first Friday after the month. The same thing, get all the data. Now we're ready to go. So let's jump right into this thing.

Days on market

DOM or average days on the market. Thirty-five in 2017, 33 last year, 37 this year. So again, a little bit of a jump in average days on market. But remember, we might see some numbers that are anomaly possibly. Because Livingston doesn't have a huge sample size, not like Oakland County or Wayne does.

Active homes in the market

This is a one-day number. So at the time that the stats were taken, how many homes were active on the market? This is why the pattern is more important than the actual number itself. Nine hundred fifteen two years ago, 944 last year and 894 this past August.

Months of inventory

Two, three and three. Now, months of inventory is a very quick ratio. So you got to understand what kind of market you're in. At the rate homes are selling, how long would it take to sell every last home on the market if no new homes came on the market? So just to give you some context, one to three is a seller's market, four to six is a balanced market. Then seven-plus is a buyer's market. So it gives you an idea of what's going on here and what kind of market we're in. We're still in a seller's market. We've been in a seller's market and we're going to continue to be until there are some big changes in the market.

New homes in the market

So this is the number of listings, actual listings that were coming online during this month. New homes in the market two years ago was 548, 583 last year, then 486. So again, not a ton of new listings coming to market compared to the last few years. We already had low inventory. I don't know what that'll get going forward, but that's not good going forward. That was a big drop-off.

Price per square foot

With this, you could take a quick valuation of your house. Remember, this is a countywide number. You take your square footage, multiply by this number, and you'd get a valuation, an estimate of your house. If you need an actual estimate though, you gotta talk to a professional. You got to talk to someone on our team, an appraiser, and actually get a valuation, have them out in your house. But two years ago it was $140 a square foot, last year was $154 a square foot and then $147 a square foot this year. So again, the pattern is what's important. We had gone on and gone up, then it's kind of dipped that back down a little bit again. In the previous months, where the inventory is kind of fluctuating, it could affect some of the data here and there.

Sold

Four hundred two 2 years ago, 310 last year, then 324. There's not a ton of inventory now. A lot of closings happening. These are actual closings. This is the one buyer statistic. We have actual closings, people sitting at a table down, one-on-one, closing on the property. We'd like to see this number up a little bit. These numbers are climbing a little bit. We'd like to see a little more balanced, but there's just not a ton of inventory out there. It's kind of a scary time, to be honest with you.

So that's our Livingston Market Update. I hope you guys appreciated it. Let me know if you have any questions about this. If you are listening to on the podcast, go to @legacygroupmi and go put your questions, comments, concerns there. We will answer them on the YouTube channel or the Facebook channel. So appreciate you guys. Your time and energy is the most important thing we have. We'll see you at the next one.