January 2020 Real Estate Market Update – Livingston County, Michigan
We have your Livingston County January 2020 Real Estate Market Update, the first one in the new year. Let's roll right into this. We always preface every video with two things. We have the month in arrears because now we have all the data hot-off-the-press and then we have three years of data because we want you to see the trend. Remember, the trend is your friend. If we just gave you one year of data, it wouldn't make any sense. We want to see three years of data starting off here.
Days on market
Fifty-two days in the market 2 years ago, 69 last year, and 67 this year. We're down a little bit. It's a trend we're kind of seeing here. Everything is dropping a little bit actually. It's kind of comfortable zone - two months on the market, getting back toward that, which is good. Really probably for everyone involved.
Active homes in the market
Four hundred ninety-nine 2 years ago, 606 last year and down a little bit to 595. That's a one-day number though. So at the time that was taken, how many active homes were actually on the market in that county? Keep that in mind. It's good to see the pattern.
Month of inventory
This is that the rate homes are selling, how long would it take to sell every last home with no new homes coming on the market? Three across the board, 3-3-3. It hasn't changed much. These are rounded. However, again, it hasn't changed very much. Still three months of inventory. Just so you guys have context, one to three months is a seller's market, meaning there's not many homes in the market and a lot of buyers. Four to six is a balanced market. Then seven-plus is a buyer's market. Meaning there's a lot of homes in the market and there are not many buyers. We usually see that in a crash, recession or something like that. But it gives you context very quickly to see what kind of market we're in. Right? So we're in a seller's market, still, sellers are the ones really making out right now.
New listings
This is the number of new listings that actually hit the market this month. This is a month-wide number. So, 268 two years ago, 314 last year and then down a little bit to 2018 levels to 271. Again, we're seeing a drop off in the number of homes around the market and coming on the market, which is a very interesting variable. Getting into a general election year doesn't totally surprise me though. We usually do seem to see some stuff like that. It's kind of on power for the last couple of years. What we've seen is all these numbers are down from what we saw in 2014, 2015 and 2016. So interesting. Very interesting. Something to keep your eye on though and we will definitely keep doing that for you. So stay tuned.
Price per square foot
One hundred thirty-five dollars two years ago, $140 last year and then $144 this year. We've seen that pattern going up. Obviously, that's what you want to see - that trend - because remember, that's a countywide number. If you take your square footage and multiply by that, it'll give you about what your home is worth. But again, if you want to see an actual valuation in your home, you have to have someone from our team, a professional, an appraiser come to your home and actually give you a valuation. Because that is a county-wide number. But again, as I said, you want to see the trend of your county. That's more important than anything here right now.
Number of homes sold
This is the number of people actually closing, putting a signature on a piece of paper, closing on homes on the closing table. One hundred fifty-seven 2 years ago, 175 last year, 189 this January. So we're up. We did see a spike really in some of these numbers over the last couple of months of 2019 so it doesn't surprise me. That was a few more homes sold in January and stuff wrapping up. This would be very exciting to see going forward because again, we have the numbers dropping here. The next couple of months will be interesting to see what's going to happen there, but we will keep our eye on it.
I appreciate you guys more than anything. I can't wait to bring you a lot more content in this new decade going forward. "The roaring twenties" as we have coined it a little bit here and can't totally take credit because I've seen the number of different people talking about that. It really has a dual meaning. It's really probably three meanings for me because the roaring twenties are going to be very fascinating. There's gonna be a lot of crises, but a lot of opportunities as well. There's going to be people that are ready to invest in real estate and rental real estate people. That might be gold, silver, things like that. Some alternative assets, possibly crypto, who knows? Because we're going to see some crisis, but it's gonna lead to big opportunities for those that are ready. So stay tuned. We can't wait to bring this stuff to you guys.
Check out some of our videos, Insider's Report, to go a little more macro level. Talk about some of the alternative investing in rental real estate. This is just the market stats for the local area. But we appreciate you guys. Your time, your energy. It's the most important thing we have. If you're on the podcast, go to @legacygroupmi, on YouTube and Facebook, go see the videos there. You can question, comment there and we'll get back to them as soon as we can and we'll see you guys in the next one.