February 2017 Real Estate Market Update – Oakland County, Michigan
What is going on in this Southeast Michigan Market? It's crazy everywhere, all around the country, but it's crazy here in Southeast Michigan. I promise you, if you stay at the end, you will know what all this means. I promise you that. This means you'll have a lot more information going out and getting ready to sell your home. Potentially buy a home and we are happy to bring this to you. Takes a lot of time and effort to get this. But it's something we loved doing. We love giving back to our clients, friends, family and business partners, whatever it may be, and who knows? It could be someone we have no idea. It could be another side of the state, outside the country. It doesn't matter. We love bringing these videos to you. We love providing value. And a lot of times, teaching is a selfish thing because a lot of times the teacher gets as much or if not more out of it than the student does. So we appreciate you. We appreciate you being our audience and giving back to you. Let's jump right into it. This is a crazy market we're in, so obviously it's March, but we always go back and look at the market before and see what the path mark gave us, what kind of numbers were. They just get the numbers in that week, make sure we got it squared away and we give them to you.
Days on Market
Look at that difference. Fifteen days shaved off time on the market from one year. Just talking to our broker, this week and saying how I thought there was no inventory last year. And boy was I wrong. Compared to this year, there's a lot of inventory last year. So just crushing it right now. It's February, typically one of the worst months of the year to sell a home. Especially here in Michigan, Southeast Michigan, look what's going on - 30 days on average. It was 47 last year and we still had low inventory then. Look at now, I mean we have two to three months inventory right now. I did put that down here at the bottom, but we have two to three months inventory right now. Last year it was like a solid three, maybe three plus in a month inventory. But just absolutely getting crushed right now the days on market.
Sellers are having a field day. Buyers are struggling. The thing is buyers have a silver lining in that there are all-time low-interest rates. Historically low-interest rates. They're starting to climb up a little bit in there, looks like they continue climbing and just inching up over time here, but still historically low. They're not seven percent, they are not 12 percent. Like a lot of our parents, grandparents saw.
Active homes on the market
The number of active homes on the market. We had 5,200 and almost 5,300 homes active on the market last February. Only 3,900 this past February. So again, you can see why there are a lot fewer days in the market with a lot fewer homes on the market, way less. As I said, we had low inventory here, even lower, now way lower. I mean it's just incredible. Absolutely incredible.
Sold
Almost the same. I mean, a little bit less this year than last year and there's not as much in the market. There's obviously not as much to choose from. So that's going to hinder it a little bit. But I mean imagine that, look at that almost, what is that third? Basically, a third of the homes sold. So it's crazy what's going on and now I'm telling you that it's insanity. So, almost the same number of sold.
Price per square foot
The price per square foot went up $13 per square foot. Just absolutely crazy. So, I didn't mention this before, but this is - we use the biggest county here in southeast Michigan, Oakland County. We use that as a gauge. We're based in Oakland County. We obviously work in Southeast Michigan, but we want to kind of gauge with the biggest county here. And what's the best representation of what's going on here? $13 per square foot up from last year. So they gain there.
New homes in the market
New listings, the same thing. We kind of saw here a number of sold in a way. We have 2,300 almost 2,400 basically, and they’re 2,500 a year ago. So a little less there, but it's one of those times if you are looking to sell, it's an unbelievable time to sell it just because you have buyers fighting over your listings. That doesn't mean you can just put your home on the market and do whatever you want with that and just “Hey, I don't care what I do with that. And it's still gonna sell. That's it.” You still have to price them properly. It has to be appraised and one or two people still have to want it just because it's on the market, there's not a lot of homes to choose from.
It doesn't mean that somebody's just going to take your listing, so you have to have a checklist, I'm going to put it in the link, can be above or below or it could be depending on where it could be in the side, depending on where you're looking at it. We're going to give you one of our free huge checklists, 98-point checklist. What a seller can do is take years to put together what a seller can do to prep their home from the eyes of a buyer. It's something that all of our sellers love and it's something that we could really provide some real value while not having to be there every second of every day. It's like we're there with you in a way. It's like a buyer is going through your home with you so that we’ll be in there.
It's a free download we have. That'll be, like I said, one of the links and then we're also going to put for you buyers out there a way or going to have a free download as well. For a way that you can cut through the sea of buyers and the different ways that you have to cut through that sea of buyers and it makes it in front of that seller and makes an offer that stands out. So we hope you guys enjoy those. A lot of blood, sweat and tears and time went into those. So those are free downloads. As I said, we'll have the links in there. When you see this above, below and the sides, whatever, the market's going crazy right now and it looks like it's going to stay at that for a while.
If you want more in-depth stuff, we have our Insider's Report that we do. I know a lot you watch that as well. Insider's report goes into a micro level insider’s report goes into a macro level, 30,000-foot view of what's going on in the market and global economy. That's something that I'm really passionate about. As I said, I'm a realtor, a business owner, we run Mitten Made Properties here obviously, but you know, in a grander, broader perspective of a business owner. I have a family to take care of and I have other families that are counting on me. We have a bigger responsibility I feel in that. I don't just look at what's going on in this market because that's in the grand scheme of life, what's happening in the macro level, the 30,000-foot view, that's what counts ultimately. This market's affected, the micro level is affected. So, catch those two. I'll try to put a link in here as well to our macro level updates as well that you guys have that. But, if you guys enjoy us all, please comment, share, tag somebody in it. We really appreciate that. That way Facebook knows you're getting something out of this. Again, I've said it all the time. I appreciate it. I love it, thank you for the comments and the snaps and all the stuff that I get saying how much you love the information or when you see me or whatever. I appreciate that so much. I love it. But, so Facebook knows so that we can expand our reach and get more of this information out there because frankly, this isn't out there enough and we're starting to see more of this now. Hopefully, we're the catalyst for a lot of this, but there's not enough of this information out there that's easy to find. And we need it out there more, so we appreciate you a ton. Like I said, comment, share, whatever. We appreciate it a ton. I told you if you stayed to the end, you'd find out what was going on here. Also, we'll put in the links to the free downloads as well, so appreciate your time and appreciate everything that you guys give us and we'll talk to you here soon.