January 2020 Real Estate Market Update – Wayne County, Michigan

We have your Wayne County Real Estate Market Update for January 2020. So let's jump right into this thing.

I always preface every video with two things. We have the month in arrears that way we have the data, hot-off-the-press, ready to go, just like the government does their data. Don't compare me to the government, that's a story for a different day. But we have it just like they come out with theirs on the first Friday after the month. We come out with our data the first week or two after the month and get this to you, hopefully in a quick fashion that way we can get in and get out. Get the information you need. We have three years of data that way we can see the trend. Remember, "the trend is your friend." If we just gave you this year of data right here, it wouldn't make any sense. We want to see three years of data that way we can see the trend and see the patterns. So let's jump right into this thing.

Days on market

DOM - that's days on the market if you see that on the listing. But this year is an average. We're doing 49 days on the market two years ago, 50 days on market last year, 53 days on market this year. We've seen a little tick up in the number of days on market, which makes sense because we've seen some of the data with an increasing supply over the last few months. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out going forward for sure. Kind of an anomaly just because other counties have not been acting like that. But Wayne County has at least going forward here in this data it is. All the other counties did have a little bit more supply in the last few months, but not everyone is showing the same data going forward. Like Wayne County was in this January Update.

Number of active homes

This is the number of homes that were on the market at that time when the data was taken. This is a one-day number. Four thousand four hundred eighty-five 2 years ago, 4,916 last year, then 5,042 this year. Again, an increase in supply on the number of homes. This is more important to see the kind of trend going forward. A steady increase over the last couple of years.

Months of inventory

Three 2 years ago, 4 last year, 4 this year, just under four. Months of inventory 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? Just a quick ratio to see what kind of market we're in and to give you guys context. We do this every time. Just so you guys can see this, any of our new listeners and watchers. One to three is a seller's market and that means there are not a lot of homes in the market like we are now and there's a ton of buyers. So prices are going up. Four to six months is a balanced market and then seven-plus is a buyer's market, meaning there's a ton of homes in the market and not as many buyers. So prices are going down. But we saw that in 2009-2012. You can see a quick ratio as to what kind of market we're in without having to even look at all the rest of this data.

New listings

This is the number of new listings that came on the market during that month. Two thousand four hundred nineteen 2 years ago, 2,482 last year and then 2,577 this year. This is I believe the only County in January that had an increase in the number of new listings that came on the market. Again, it would be interesting to see with Wayne County going forward and kind of how this plays out because they are across the board. They've had an increase in inventory.

Price per square foot

Eighty-one dollars 2 years ago, $83 last year and $84 this year, so a slight increase. Again, the trend is your friend here, remember that. This is a county-wide number. If you take your square footage and multiply it by this, you would get approximately what your home was worth. If you want an actual evaluation, you have to have an appraiser, a real estate professional, someone from our team to come and look at the property and give you an actual evaluation. This just gives you again a county-wide number. As I said before, the trend is your friend to see which way your county is trending.

Number of sold

The last one, 1,544 two years ago, 1,336 last year and 1,345 this past January. A little bit of an uptick number of closings, which is good. This is actual closings, people signing their name to the paper and closing on a home. So good to see a little bit of an uptick. We'd like to see it probably up towards this 15 or 16 numbers. But again, we have the discrepancy, obviously a big discrepancy in Wayne County more than any other number of homes in the market compared to the number of actually sold homes. So again, very interesting. We're going to see how this plays out going forward. General election years tend to be kind of wonky all over the place. So it can be a very interesting year doing these market updates to see what happens going forward. So stay tuned.

If you know anyone in Wayne County, if you live in Wayne County, please pass along. If you know someone else who could use this info if you're on the podcast listens to @legacygroupmi. On the YouTube and Facebook channels where the video is, put your questions, comments, concerns there. We would love to get to those and appreciate your time. Your energy is the most important thing we have and we look forward to seeing you on the next one.