The ever changing real estate market has been pretty apparent during the first 18 years of the 21st century. A strong start was followed by a little hiccup felt during the 911 tragedy. Then a steady push up before bottoming out in 2008. almost a decade was spent on that recovery and now, the question is, are we heading for another downturn. The answer is most certainly yes. The real questions are when and how severe. If only someone knew those answers.
Residential Real Estate Sales
Summit County real estate sales in 2018 were good. Not as good as 2017 which is one reason there is speculation about a downturn. Residential sales were only off 2017 by 8%. 1,830 sales during the course of 2018 compared to 1,987 in 2017. While a relatively small difference, it was the first decrease in number of residential sales since the recession.
Average Sale Price
Average sale price for a residential property was up in 2018 by 9.3% over 2017. That increase brings the average sale price to $764,785. That is the average in the entire county for all residential properties. Residential properties under $200,000 are few and far between with only 17 sold in 2018. Properties priced over a million dollars made up 20.4% of sales in 2018. About 1/5th of those sales were over $2,000,000.
Inventory Levels
Inventory is growing too. The number of residential properties for sale was up 18.6% over 2017. That is giving buyers a few more properties to choose from but options are still limited, especially in the lower price points. In early January, there were 370 residential properties for sale in the county. 51% of those 370 were priced at $1,000,000 or above. 75% of those 370 were above $600,000. That doesn’t leave many properties to choose from with a price tag around half a million dollars or less.
2019 Forecast
The amount of time the real estate market has spent pushing higher is the main reason it has to stop. The market is always changing. Every new high will bring another new low. With very few homes on the market, demand will have to decline dramatically in order to see prices go down. Perhaps the appreciation will not be as dramatic in 2019 and we will see the market level off, but I don’t anticipate Summit County real estate prices to drop just yet.
Refresh your memory with 2017’s year end numbers and see how we did with our 2018 predictions in 2017’s year in review blog post.
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