January 2018 Real Estate Market Update – Oakland County, Michigan

So we have a couple numbers that might be an aberration, but again, this is showing you what the buyer pool doesn't change a whole heck of a lot. We just, there's not much to choose from out here. These numbers are really decreasing each month. A number of new homes going down, the number of total active homes going down each year in January. So again, it just goes to show, it's a seller's market and it's important to know that going in the process if you are a seller or a buyer.

So, you know, as a seller you've got to know you've got to be ready because you're going to have to be jumping into this buyer's market or you got to be ready to rent somewhere or live with somebody, do something. You got to be ready because your house is most likely going to go quickly. You know, especially with the marketing plans, that things that, you know, that we have to go on. The home's gonna sell, you know, we just sold a home a couple days ago, the earliest week is on the market for a good day, had a bunch of offers on it and just showing us coming like crazy. So as a seller, you've got to be ready, you know, we just did. That just happened a couple of days ago. And another one coming online, same thing. It's going to happen, you know, it's just like, you know, when you watch these patterns, you watch and see what's going on, you take the pulse in the market, you can really more accurately predict what's going to happen with listings.

Do you know how to market it properly? But as a buyer, you have to know because a lot of buyers getting frustrated out there, it really is one of those things. You have to know the market, you've got to talk to your team of people. You've got to talk to your trusted advisors because it's a market you have to be prepared for on both ends. And as a buyer, you've got to be prepared to be patient. There are many things you can do to help yourself, you know, financially, but also in terms of writing an offer, but you really have to adjust a mindset. A mindset is the biggest thing you're going to have to go into any situation, especially as a buyer. Because again, a buyer, a situation is very tough right now. I feel for buyers out there because, the silver lining is that there are really all-time low-interest rates still, but for buyers, there's such low inventory that it's a complete battle out there, especially if you're in that, you know, 75, 100,000 to you know, 400,000.

That market is just, it's a bloodbath. So be prepared, be prepared mentally and get around your trust advisors, get people that know what they're talking about, that know, the market that know what they're doing that have other good advisors around them. Like good inspectors, good appraisers, good vendors, you know, insurance, title, everything you gotta know who to talk to. That way they can surround you with other better people. So I hope this helped guys. I hope this, the Oakland County update helped you guys. As I said, we're going to be doing the January updates for Genesee and the columns and other counties We have your Oakland County January market update numbers. Just came in, hot off the press because it is the first of February. So we're going on the January numbers for Oakland County and we're going to dive right in. We've got some interesting numbers here actually, that again, we've had this like a year ago, we had some interesting numbers one month and a lot of times it's an aberration and you just kind of see, you know, what's the progression and what's going to happen. The lead the months preceding that. So we'll see here when to jump right in. No days on market. And again, we have the last two years of data. That way know exactly what we're looking at it, that way you guys can see patterns and so we can see patterns so we can accurately depict what's going on and letting you guys know, our clients know that what kind of market it is and what kind of patterns to look for also in the future.

Days on Market

So you know, your history, then you need to know the future, right? So days on market is DOM and you'd see 45 days in the market, two years, two January's ago, and the 37 big dips. And then this year we had 53 actually. So we actually had it rise. We had two numbers here, I believe a rise or one rose and in one fell, you know, in actually were concurrent with each other in that regard, a price per square foot. So we're getting there in a second. But, again, probably an aberration. This market is a little interesting. Some, if you're in certain markets, if you're in the 100 to 300 under 350, that time of market things are just flying off the shelves. There's very low inventory. So if you're in some different markets, like if there are other price points, this is the one thing that data doesn't take into consideration how many of what kind of housing on the market.

Active homes in the market

So maybe there were some houses that were more expensive on the market. They didn't sell that quickly. So that's rising, the days on market, things like that. So that could explain some of those aberrations and again, you, we usually over the last two years basically we've seen this dropping every single time. So generally the theme obviously is this drops, so take not just one month at a time and consideration you have to take months at a time into consideration active homes. Again though that this show is a lot of what we've been seeing. We've been seeing a steady decrease in homes on the market and that's why we're seeing a really crazy things going on and high prices and bidding wars because we've had, you know, 5,500, almost a 2000 home drop of active homes in the market for two January's ago to this January. So again, you can see why things are the way they are.

Month of Inventory

A month of inventory. Again, these are, this is a number we've rounded off. It's about three months of inventory and that's why any in the future. We'll probably start putting decimals in here and just you can see, and again this really is just a ratio. The grander picture, the bigger picture of this is you want to be able to see a isn't a four-month it a 6 month, 12 months, is it a one month? That's the difference we're looking for. So it's not so much the decimals that we're looking for and really getting the nitty-gritty. We want to see the ratio basically is taking a lot of these numbers into consideration and then just giving you a quick hit of you know, ok, three months of inventory. And really a stable market is probably anywhere from five to six months of inventory. That's really a stable market and what we're looking for.

New homes in the market

So you can see that we're definitely under that and that's again alluding to a seller's market and these numbers bear that out. New homes in the market. Again, dropping consistently over the last couple of years, had almost 2,800 or just under 2,800. We have just under 2200 that came out of the market in January compared to two years ago. So again, a steady decline in new homes coming on the market.

Price per square foot

Now, this is another interesting one. Price per square foot, price per square foot, huge increase here in Oakland County from 15 to 16. And then this year, again this could be because maybe there was a lot of lower-end homes in the market like we talked about a minute ago. Maybe there are some higher-end homes keeping things in the market. Well it looks like there may be a bunch of lower-end homes in the market that, may have been suppressing a little bit, dropping their price per square foot and again, taking a little bit longer because people really right now in just kind of the culture we live in and just what people are expecting and wanting.

Sold

They want things that are done. They want things that are moving ready and things that are ready to go. People again, it's not always so much because people are lacking finances or they're lacking the ability to do it or lacking the people that they know that can do it. It's really just time. There's a lot of it is time and they'd just. Life moves so fast now that they want things that are moving ready. So this could be one of those symptoms of that and just seeing what's happening there. So, the last thing sold. So again, this is an indicator as you guys can see it thru every single month. This is something that really doesn't change that much. Now, this did change a bit. Percentage-wise, this did change again, these sold numbers are considerably lower obviously every single month, but they're not going to be a massive, massive change

Again, this one's a little bit, probably a little bit more percentage wise than some of the other months, many other months. But again, these numbers stay pretty consistent. What this shows us, the soul, that slot basically shows us how many buyers are out there and what the buyer movement is, a lot of these basically has to do with sellers and the inventory on the market. This has to do with buyers. And again, the buyer pool doesn't change much. It really, it doesn't change too much from time to time. The only time it really changed. Again, we've talked about many times, but if there's a big recession, depression, things like that, that's when things really changed. You see the buyer's market fluctuate. The buyer pool should say, fluctuate, but this is showing us again this month, maybe a little bit of an aberration sometimes that happens.

As I said, I think it was about eight months ago, maybe 8, 10 months ago, and I have to check to see when we had some numbers that were a little bit off kilter, but again, doesn't happen very often. Numbers tell a story, right? The numbers tell a story. The numbers don't come up here in the coming week. And we look forward to talking to you guys very soon.