January 2020 Real Estate Market Update – Oakland County, Michigan

What's going on, guys? Brandon here, Legacy Group Real Estate Team. We have your Oakland County Real Estate Market Update for January 2020. A new decade. Let's go. We've been bringing these for I think five years now, almost five years. I can't wait to bring these more content to you guys in the coming decade. The good old roaring twenties. Let's jump right into this.

We have two things I should say. We have three years of data. We have two things to talk about, which is one to three years of data that way you can see what's going on and see the trend. The trend is your friend. If we just gave you this year of data it wouldn't make sense, right? Then, we have the month in arrears that way we can see the data hot off-the-press. We can give it to you. You could get in, get out and get the information you need. So let's jump right into this thing.

Days on market

DOM - anytime you see that. Fifty-Three days on the market two years ago, 60 last year and then 71 this year. So we've seen a jump here. We've seen a decrease in all the other counties. Oakland County went up fairly significantly. It's gonna be interesting to see going forward how that kind of plays out. But we do have some decrease in the numbers, which I'm assuming this is probably going to go down going forward.

Number of active listings

This is a one-day number that the day that data was taken, how many homes are on the market on that given day? Three thousand seven hundred two 2 years ago, 4,520 last year, and then 4,042 this year. We're now kind of in-between there, leveled-off, which is good to see. But we've seen drops in all of these.

Months of inventory

Three 2 years ago, 4 last year and then 3 this year. This is at the rate homes are selling, how long would it take to sell every last home with no new homes coming on the market? This is a quick ratio to see what kind of market we're in. Just to give you some context - one to three months is a seller's market, meaning there are not a ton of homes in the market and there's a lot of buyers. Sellers are making out. Four to six months is a balanced market. Then seven-plus is a buyer's market, meaning there's a lot of homes in the market and there's not a lot of buyers so home prices are going down. We have the opposite of that. We are in that seller's market territory where prices are going up, making it harder for buyers. But it's a good time if you own a home, you're getting that equity back from the recession. So that's for sure.

New listings

This is a month-wide number. It's the number of new listings that came onto the market over the month. To thousand one hundred sixty-eight 2 years ago, 2,513 last year and then 2,347. More than two years ago, but less than last year. Kind of even now, kind of a leveled-off.

Price per square foot

One hundred eleven dollars two years ago, $115 last year and $121 this year. So again, we're seeing kind of a wealth effect too. You hear about it a lot of times in investing. The Wealth Effect fact is you're seeing your account go up, you're seeing your 401k and things like that going up, you feel wealthier. Stock prices are going up, you feel wealthier, but you're not wealthier because you haven't taken the money out. It's just in your account. You look like you're wealthier. But that's happening here a lot of times because we're seeing some of these numbers kind of do a little bit of this. Then the prices are going up because the market sometimes is slow to change, especially in real estate. It's a slower market. It's not like boom, boom, boom, like the stock market, right? The real estate market, sometimes people, might take a month or two, which might take a couple of months when the market change direction. So even though there's more housing demand, you still might get people bidding up prices on homes. Do they think that the market's crazy, right? They think that they need to bid things up because that's just the way the market's been. So very interesting to see how that plays out going forward. But again, I would expect that they probably continue going upward just because we're seeing some drop-off and the number of homes in the market.

Number of sold

This is the number of people signing on a home and closing on a home. One thousand one hundred ninety 2 years ago, 1,197 last year and then 1,287 this past January. Again, a little bump up for what we've seen in the last few years, which is good to see. More people closing on homes, which is always a good thing to see. That's another kind of an outlier in away. None of the other counties in the area in Southeast Detroit are bent like that. So good to see from Oakland County that they're kind of leading the way with that.

So that is it, guys. We want you to get your information, get in and get out, make sure that you are getting it quickly. That's the thing. We've been trying to shorten these up over the last year that we can get in and get out, get what you need. If you know someone who might benefit from this, please send it to them. Maybe you live in Oakland County or maybe you know people who do. If you're on the podcast @legacygroupmi, on the YouTube and Facebook channel that way you can go comment there. You can go put your feedback there and we would love to see it, answer those questions for anyone that has them. We appreciate your time and your energy, it's the most important asset that we have. We'll see you guys in the next one.