January 2017 Real Estate Market Update – Oakland county, Michigan
Market update time, giving you a local real estate market update. So I know we talked a lot about these updates. We're doing two - a month and one - a micro level and the macro level. This is our micro level update, Insider's Report is our macro level. That's the global economy, currency history, all that good stuff. This is the micro level. We're going down to the nitty-gritty. This is Oakland County, but it really gives you a good idea what's going on in southeast Michigan. In Mitten Made Properties Real Estate Team, we cover southeast Michigan and this is our territory. It's going to give you a good idea what's going on in the market in general. So let's hop right into it. Not going to be a super long video. So we want to just knot this out here.
Days on market
This is huge. I mean these numbers are just crazy. You can tell it's a seller's market and it's one thing for people just to go around and say it and I was like, “Okay, great, that's awesome.” Well, these numbers back it up so it's great for everyone. Every real estate professional, people are always asking, this is the stuff that actually backs it up. In days on market, we had 45 last year in January. This is January 2017, obviously, it's February and we're always doing these retroactively or looking back in arrears, it's because we're getting the data obviously for that month and then giving you basically. And that's why we're doing it. So we do it very quickly right at the beginning of each new month and that way we can give you the most pertinent data, all the facts, and figures. So, days on market is 45 days on market last January, which was actually a very fast time in and of itself. And this January, 37 days on market on average, so huge drops. I mean over a week right there. So eight days off the days on market.
Active homes on the market
The number of active. We had over 5,500 in 2016, this past January we only had 4,000. I mean you can't even explain. Buyers are having such a hard time right now. So as a seller, it's such an amazing time to sell your home now and definitely. Basically, if you're a seller out there and you're looking to sell a home here, what a time. I mean this is the time to really start prepping, getting ready because look, there's nobody out there. You just don't have competition. These were numbers that were crazy then. Well look at now, I mean this next number is going to blow you away.
Price per square foot
One hundred eighteen on average last year, a year ago, $170 a square foot on average this year in Oakland County. Massive price increases. So obviously with the drop in supply, demand prices go up. It's huge and this is something too that people always have this stigma that in the winter months it's a bad time to sell. It's just not true because there are always buyers out there, there's always people that are transferring. There are always people looking to do stuff, either tax time, end of the year, things like that.
It's a common myth that people aren't just around doing things in December and January, February and it's just not true. I mean, we have the numbers right here. Look at those levels of prices. So again, if you're a seller in this time period, you're just loving life, and buyers, it's something that they're struggling with. They're fighting over houses, but it's all time, low-interest rates, historically low interest rates. And again, it's probably something we're never going to see again. Who knows that something we dive into in the inside of the video is, but generally it's probably not something you're ever going to see again. So that is kind of the silver lining for buyers, but just massive, obviously massive increase in price per square foot number.
Sold
1600 sold last year, 1300 this year.
Months of inventory
These are the exact numbers rounding here. So, again, the months of inventory just kind of show how much inventory is out there with the rate people are buying the homes. How long will the homes out there last at this rate?
New homes in the market
The number of new listing - 2,700 new listings last January, only 2300 this January. Again, it's something. In the fall we saw a little bit of a drop off because we always do school time. People are getting back into the swing of things and non-incumbent elections also do affect what's going on. So, people don't like uncertainty. The markets don't like uncertainty. They start coming back into the fold now, so now we're seeing that. Non-incumbent elections, people don't know what's going on, they don't know as much. You're not exactly sure how they're going to govern, so people do kind of tend to sit on the sidelines a little bit more.
So the last few months they were a little slower than the last couple of years, but it's really because of a lot of that uncertainty. People did, interest rates were threatening to pick up, things like that. So it kind of like people just eerie as to what was going happen. But we're just seeing that now that it's just starting to kind of take off again really. Sellers are just having a heyday, having a field day with it. Buyers, again, the silver lining is all time low interest rates, historically low-interest rates still. So that is the market update. Wish you guys get anything out of this. gain, I'm Brandon Gentile, the CEO and the founder of Mitten Made Properties here at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. We're based in Oakland County, Michigan. Hence why we do the Oakland County update. Also one largest county obviously, so it gives us a good sample size, a good cross-check, a good cross-section of what's going on in the market.
But if you guys like this stuff, please share it. Comment. We love giving this stuff out no matter what obviously. But we do a lot of Q and A's, probably be doing a Facebook live later on Mitten Made Properties channel. But if you guys liked this stuff, please let us know. I get a lot of private messages and Snapchats and Instagram direct messages and things like that because we're posting on there all day long. We get a lot of messages through there. But, please share, we take a lot of time for us to do this stuff obviously. Like the video, please share it, tag someone in it. And it helps us out a lot. So we really appreciate it. We love bringing the stuff to you. In two weeks we're going to have another Insider’s update and kind of looking at what's going on here. I know a lot of craziness going on in the political world and the currency world and just kind of the historical perspective of that in the commodities markets, all that good stuff.
So look forward to that. And we'll be getting this out to everybody as well. So we appreciate the time. Again, share it, if you can, we really appreciate it a lot. Have an awesome weekend. We'll talk to you soon.