Healthy Public, Healthy Market

As residents of the Capital Region began to receive vaccinations en masse last month, home sales followed suit. Closed sales increased 24 percent from February 2020 to 867 for the month with the City of Albany faring particularly well improving sales by 66 percent over last February. Sales are a mixed bag across the country, not because of a lack of demand, which is strong, but because there just aren’t enough homes to go around. New listings in the Capital Region fell 25 percent to 925 for the month.

Throughout the Capital Region homes continued to sell more quickly than in 2020. With buyer demand remaining strong, the typical home is spending only 50 days on market – a reduction of three weeks compared to last year.

Pending sales decreased 15 percent from February 2020 to 834 for the month.

“The drop can be attributed to the historically low inventory,” said Jeffrey Decatur, GCAR President of RE/MAX Capital. Inventory levels market-wide decreased 47 percent to 2,384 units. Decatur stated, “As we approach the busy spring season, we may begin to see a much-needed increase in inventory due to new construction.”

With an extreme shortage of inventory nationwide, prices are expected to continue to rise in 2021. Prices were up compared to this time last year with the median sales price increasing 15 percent to $230,000 for existing Single Family Homes. New construction prices rose by 7 percent over February 2020 to $402,546. Lawrence Yun, National Association of REALTORS® chief economist, cautioned of a possible slowdown in growth in the coming months as higher prices and rising mortgage rates could cut into home affordability.

Greater Capital Association of REALTORS® CEO, Laura Burns, agreed with Yun and commented that “With existing single family inventory down to two months or so, the return of new construction is most welcome in our region and the sales activity shows it. Last month’s new construction days on market dropped by 68 percent over last February.” Despite the more than 40 percent price differential over existing homes, 211 new construction homes were listed in February, and 122 went under contract.