Active Housing Market This Holiday Season
The holiday season brought the nation and the Capital Region an active sales market with strong buyer demand due to record low-interest rates and the continued increase in desire for homeownership due to the persistent pandemic. Homes, on average, spent only 46 days on the market last month, a reduction of 16 days from December 2019. Nearly 1,500 homes sold at a median price of $240,000. Pending sales contributed to the market activity with an increase of 3 percent to 690 for the month.
Greater Capital Association of REALTORS® President, Jeffrey Decatur of Re/Max Capital, observed that homebuyers and sellers were much more active this holiday season compared to the past. “Low inventory and high demand have driven real estate sales and home values into double-digit gains,” Decatur said.
Greater Capital Association of REALTORS® CEO, Laura Burns, commented, “The addition of 736 new listings – 106 of which were new construction – will certainly help the struggling inventory which continues to challenge buyers.” Market-wide, inventory levels decreased by nearly 39 percent to 3,037 units bringing the months’ supply of inventory to 2.5 months. The percent of original list price continues to drift upwards landing at 97.4 last month, an increase of 4 percent over last December.
According to the National Association of REALTORS®, nationwide, existing-home sales totaled 5.64 million in 2020, up 5.6% from 2019 and the most since before the Great Recession according. Median existing-home sales price was $309,800, up 12.9% from one year ago.” Home sales rose in December, and for 2020 as a whole, we saw sales perform at their highest levels since 2006, despite the pandemic,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “What’s even better is that this momentum is likely to carry into the new year, with more buyers expected to enter the market.”
With low mortgage rates and strong buyer demand in most market segments, the housing market of early 2021 looks to continue the trends we saw in the second half of 2020.
